Subject: Re: [PATCH] autoconf: Use autoconf to write installation directories to config.mak

From: Andreas Ericsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:18:27 +0200

Jakub Narebski wrote:
> Matthias Lederhofer wrote:
> 
> 
>>>This is beginning of patch series introducing installation configuration
>>>using autoconf (and no other autotools) to git. The idea is to generate
>>>config.mak using ./configure (generated from configure.ac) from
>>>config.mak.in, so one can use autoconf as an _alternative_ to ordinary
>>>Makefile, and creating one's own config.mak.
>>
>>Are you sure this should be named config.mak? From INSTALL:
>>
>>>You can place local settings in config.mak and the Makefile
>>>will include them.  Note that config.mak is not distributed;
>>>the name is reserved for local settings.
>>
>>So with another filename either include it
>>- before config.mak: the user may override ./configure options with
>>  config.mak
>>- after config.mak: ./configure overrides config.mak
> 
> 
> The idea was to use ./configure to _generate_ config.mak, which the user can
> then edit.
> 

This is bad, since it forces users to do one thing first and then do 
what they're used to. Better to have the script add

-include config.mak.autogen

LAST in config.mak, unless it's already in the file and generate 
config.mak.autogen with configure.

Since Make does things bottoms-up (much like swedish students and 
midsummer celebrators), the previous hand-edited defaults in config.mak 
will beat the ones in config.mak.autogen (a good thing).

> But perhaps using another filename for results of ./configure script 
> (and including it in main Makefile) would be better idea.
> 
> 
>>At least do not overwrite config.mak if it exists.
> 
> 
> But one might want to run ./configure with different options, to finally
> arrive at the set which is satisfactionary. So unless some magic to detect
> if config.mak was generated from ./configure script, or generated by user
> is used...
> 

grep -q autogen config.mak || \
	echo "-include config.mak.autogen" >> config.mak

I wouldn't want my long-standing, functioning config.mak overwritten, 
but I *might* be interested in trying some of the options provided by 
./configure.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   [email-masked]
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231