Re: gettext 0.17 installs generic m4 files in $prefix/share/aclocal

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2008-12-07 20:18:30 +0100, Bruno Haible wrote:
> You mean this change, I suppose?
> http://gforge.inria.fr/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/trunk/acinclude.m4?root=mpfr&rev=5385&r1=5353&r2=5385

Yes.

> Well, this change for me does not count as "gettext introduces clashes
> with other software", nor is it MPFR that "regarded this file as standard".
> Simply, the author of that change was not aware that the contents of
> /usr/share/aclocal varies among machines

This is not a problem as long as the files used are not related to
specific to particular software (we can add dependencies on some
common dev tools).

> and should be used with care, although this is implied by the
> Automake manual:
> 
>   6.3.2 Macro search path
>   -----------------------
> 
>   `ACDIR'
>        This directory is intended for third party `.m4' files ...

Then perhaps the interface is badly designed. IMHO, such a directory
should not be search by default.

> The commit above used gl_SIZE_MAX without specifying a file name. Yet on
> the particular developer's machine, "aclocal" resolved it. So it would
> also have resolved it if the name had been gettext-size_max.m4 or
> grandma-your-teeth.m4.

Yes, but if the file was named gettext-size_max.m4, then it makes clear
that the file comes from gettext. "size_max.m4" looks like a file from
some generic dev tool.

> Therefore just changing the name is not enough. One would need to remove
> the file from /usr/share/aclocal/ in order to prevent people from using it.
> But there are many packages that install files in /usr/share/aclocal/:
[...]
> I therefore think that it is a more general problem with 'aclocal', that
> you should bring up with the automake developers.

Yes, I agree that this is a general problem. I'll see with them.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <address@hidden> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)