Re: Broken makefile given Autoconf version mismatch

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Stepan Kasal wrote on Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 02:52:31PM CEST:
> On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 02:03:14PM +0200, Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:
> >  Stepan> I would suffice if autoconf, when called in 3) updated ./configure.
> >  Stepan> (It presents only minimum of extra work.)
> > 
> > I don't think it works :
*snip*

Also, you are munging time stamps behind `make's back.
And, how can you be sure the user doesn't have

     $(srcdir)/my-other-configure: configure.ac aclocal.m4
             cd $(srcdir) && autoconf -o ...

?  (Granted, the latter is a bit far-fetched, and will evoke an automake
warning.)

> It is possible to fix it by replacing the dependency:
> 
> $(srcdir)/Makefile.in:  $(srcdir)/Makefile.am $(am__configure_deps)
> 
> by
> 
> $(srcdir)/Makefile.in:  $(srcdir)/Makefile.am $(top_srcdir)/configure
> 
> Would you like this amended proposal?

This would silently break lots of `bootstrap' scripts that call
  aclocal
  automake
  autoconf

in that order, instead of the other way.  (Remember that was the order
in which autoreconf-2.13 called them; although virtually unusable, it
may reasonably have served as a prototype of many bootstrap scripts
still in use out there, and working so far.)

Cheers,
Ralf