Re: [PATCH] AC_INIT: properly quote package name containing m4 macro

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 03/17/2011 10:09 PM, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
> * Eric Blake wrote on Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 05:57:48PM CET:
> > We have an existing use case that argues for unexpanded (automake's
> > desire to write tests for dummy packages that use arbitrary names that
> > happen to match m4 builtins that aren't in the m4_ reserved namespace).
My use case is to set the version number consistently inside of a 
package (package suite) which consists of several sub-packages.

To achieve this, I have two aclocal *.m4s containing something similar 
to this:
aclocal/version.m4:
AC_DEFUN([XXXX_VERSIONING],
m4_define([_XXXX_VERSION],[1.2.99.0]))
m4_define([_XXXX_API],[1.3])

aclocal/init.m4:
AC_DEFUN([XXXX_INIT],
[AC_REQUIRE([XXXX_VERSIONING
AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT([/opt/XXXX-][_XXXX_API])
])

... accompanied by this in configure.ac's:
AC_INIT([XXXX],[_XXXX_VERSION],[http://www.XXXX.org/bugzilla])
XXXX_INIT

... and this in Makefile.am's
ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I <path-to-version.m4>


> AC_INIT is very widely
> used, by almost every package using Autoconf.  There might be some
> that rely on the current behavior, at least if it has been that way
> for a long time.  (And at some point in the past, the behavior might
> have been consistent ...)  Expanding user macros here can be useful.
What I do is one way to escape autoconf many years ago having stopped 
allowing variables in AC_INIT.
It allows me to only change one file with version bumps, instead having 
to modify many configure.ac's.

Ralf