Re: [PATCH 1/2] AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS: new macro, mostly for aclocal

[Adrian Bunk]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 01:31:39AM +0100, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> Oops, I should have answered to this before writing my last reply ...
> 
> On 11/02/2012 09:46 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> > On 10/17/2012 04:15 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> >> Similar to AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR, but accepts more than one argument.
> >> This will allow projects to use several m4 macro local dirs.  This is
> >> especially important for projects that are used as nested subpackages
> >> of larger projects.
> >>
> >> See also:
> >> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2011-12/msg00037.html>
> >> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2012-07/msg00010.html>
> >>
> >> * lib/autoconf/general.m4 (AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS): New.  Expands to the
> >> empty anyway, since it is only meant to be traced by tools like aclocal
> >> and autoreconf.
> > 
> > Hmm, I'm wondering if we should do something fancier, and have both
> > AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR and AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS collaborate so that the
> > FIRST call to either macro causes AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR to be traced.
> >
> Considering that I'd like to see AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR deprecated in
> Autoconf 2.71 and removed in Autoconf 2.72, I believe that would be
> a bit of an overkill.
>...

It is completely crazy to imagine removing a macro in Autoconf 2.72 
that is as of today used in half of all configure.ac files. [1]

Did you ever consider the consequences e.g. for Debian, where more than
thousand packages are re-running autoconf at package build time?
"We have to fix 1000 packages before we can upgrade to autoconf 2.72
in Debian" sounds like a pretty horrible situation for both Debian
and autoconf.

Marking it as deprecated in Autoconf 2.71 with a possible removal
10 years later sounds like a more realistic schedule.

cu
Adrian

[1] non-representative number based on 200 random packages whose
    sources happened to be on my computer

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