[OpenAFS-devel] [PATCH] handle nesting of vars in configure.in properly

[Jeremy Katz]

On Tuesday, October 09 2001, Derrick J Brashear said:
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > > How would this give a different result than say
> > > make DESTDIR=$buildroot install
> > 
> > It doesn't give a different result, per se, but it is a more correct way
> > of doing things.  IMHO, DESTDIR is a hack best reserved for things which
> > aren't using autoconf/automake since it's so trivial to do things with
> > automake and autoconf.  
> 
> Is there some document which defines how autoconf-using packages should
> behave? 

Other than the fact that every Makefile generated by default by
automake/autoconf is this way?  No, not off the top of my head.  

> My inclination is to avoid bizarre semantics for nesting variables
> which basically give us yet another way for people to screw
> themselves.  The current mechanism is already too flexible.

The nesting variables won't affect people at all, though.  In the
default case, they run configure, the variables get set and they get
resubstituted when they're actually executed... when they're *supposed*
to be.  The current mechanism isn't too flexible, it's just the way
autoconf and automake work; if you think it's too flexible, perhaps the
switch shouldn't have been done.  But as it is, I consider the defaults
generated by configure to be broken since it breaks behavior which works
on every other autoconf using application I've packaged in the past year
and a half or so.

But, I do have to say that the current state of things makes building
drastically easier.  After having dreaded doing this build (since I
haven't really been keeping up since about March or April), I was quite
pleased to see just about everything work without much in the way of
problems.  

Cheers,

Jeremy