Re: [PATCH] Add tests about support of wildcards in EXTRA_DIST

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Stefano Lattarini wrote on Sun, May 23, 2010 at 02:41:24PM CEST:
> At Sunday 23 May 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2010-02/msg00017.html>
> 
> > Unfortunately that turned out to be too optimistic.  I'm pushing
> >  this followup to maint.  Tested on NetBSD 5.99.29 and the pmake
> >  package of Debian.
> >     Wildcards are not portable to NetBSD make.
> > 
> >     * doc/automake.texi (Wildcards): Document portability issue.
> >     * tests/extra10.test, tests/extra11.test, tests/extra12.test:
> >     Require GNU make.
> Isn't the requirement of GNU make too much strict?  After all, the tests
> works correctly with FreeBSD make and even with Heirloom make.

Yes maybe, but there is no easy way to distinguish, say, NetBSD make
from FreeBSD make, without testing details like wildcard support.
I don't want to get into the habit of denoting in the test suite which
makes can do which, after all, in practice packages will just want to
require GNU make anyway when they use features like wildcards.

Cheers,
Ralf