Re: keeping $exec-prefix et al unexpanded

[Dan Kegel]

Philip Willoughby wrote:
> I've been thinking (shock!), and it seems to me that it wouldn't break
> anything majorly if we did expand all the $prefix-dependant variables.  The
> reason being, practically everyone uses automake these days, and automake
> defines all installation paths to be prefixed by $DESTDIR, which is empty
> by default.
>
> Since the only reason I've been given to keep the variables unexpanded is
> so that you can do:
>
> ./configure --prefix=/usr
> make
> make prefix=/tmp/usr install
> cd /tmp
> tar cfz binary-tarball.tgz usr
>
> this seems to me to be a bit of a redundant feature.

Not everyone uses automake.  Please don't break this.
- Dan