Re: Broken makefile given Autoconf version mismatch

[Ralf Wildenhues]

[ automake-patches dropped ]

Hi Stepan,

* Stepan Kasal wrote on Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:40:04AM CEST:
> 
> BTW, you said:
> > 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; [...]
> 
> It wouldn't break them, I think, it would only slow them down.
> During the first `make', automake would update all Makefile.in's and
> the build would continue.  But yes, it wouldn't be nice.

I believe you assume too much.  You assume that, at the time `make' is
called, the autotools are available and the same versions as at the time
`bootstrap' is called; also, that the source tree is writable at `make'
time; also, that `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is not in effect.  Don't you, BTW,
also assume that the user won't start to issue `make' in several build
trees at once?  Is automake immune to being executed several times, to
update, say, $top_srcdir/Makefile.in from different build trees?  I
don't know, but automake.in:generate_makefile doesn't look like it.

And even with those assumptions I'd call that breakage: the bootstrap
script stops to perform its main function, namely to ensure that the
autotools have been run properly.

Cheers,
Ralf