Re: How do I *conditionally* add to INSTALL_DIRS ?

[atoz]

thank you for your reply

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> If you go by the GNU Coding Standards, you should use --enable for
> these, as they don't specify interaction with external packages.

fair enough, but it doesn't change the nature of my problem.

> Instead of this:
>
> > # man pages
> > if test -n "${with_man_pages}"; then \
> >         INSTALL_DIRS += $(foomandir) \
> > fi
> >
> > # documentation
> > if test -n "${with_readme}" -o -n "${with_license}" -o -n "$
> > {with_credits}" -o -n "${with_sgml_docs}"; then \
> >         INSTALL_DIRS += $(foodocdir) \
> > fi
>
> you can do this for example:
>
> # configure.ac snippet:
> AM_CONDITIONAL([MAN_PAGES], [test -n "$with_man_pages"])
> AM_CONDITIONAL([FOO_DOCS],
>   [test -n "$with_readme$with_license$with_credits$with_sgml_docs"])

I already have the above in my configure.ac file

> # Makefile.am snippet:
> if MAN_PAGES
> INSTALL_DIRS += $(foomandir)
> endif
> if FOO_DOCS
> INSTALL_DIRS += $(foodocdir)
> fi

this doesn't make a difference though because automake copies this  
verbatim into Makefile.in where it does nothing useful because the  
vars EXTRA_DIST and INSTALL_DIRS need to be set BEFORE automake does  
its magic in order to generate the relevant code in Makefile.in  
accordingly.

Basically, I want to be able to let a user do this

./configure --with-man-pages=yes/no --with-readme=yes/no

(alternatively, --enable/disable-man-pages --enable/disable-readme)

and as a result get a Makefile.in with something like this

man-pages:
        # install man pages to $(foomandir) here
        ...

readme:
        # install README to $(foodocdir) here
        ...

IF and ONLY IF those options were set to "yes", otherwise ...

man-pages:
        # do nothing here

readme:
        # do nothing here

IF and ONLY IF those options were set to "no"

Furthermore, Makefile.in should also have the relevant instructions  
in the various clean targets to uninstall

thanks again for any feedback on how to do this.