Re: superfluous link rule for unknown languages

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "adl" == Alexandre Duret-Lutz <address@hidden> writes:

Tom> I think the best fix is to go back to conditionally using $(EXEEXT).

adl> Wow, this is really different from any fix I would have
adl> imagined.  (From my point of view Automake should not emit a
adl> link rule for unknown languages, but maybe that would be a
adl> feature and it's not time for this.)

I think it's hard to classify this one.  Historically automake just
went ahead and generated a rule unless the user did it.
The user could also affect it by setting program_LINK (this is still
undocumented!  I'll fix) if he wanted most of the rule.
I'm inclined to keep doing this, as it is backwards-compatible.
Also it doesn't seem obviously wrong.  Many times an unknown extension
is just translated to C and using the "C linker" is appropriate.

adl> I see $seen_exeext is set to 1 when Automake encounter
adl> AC_EXEEXT.  AC_EXEEXT has been obsoleted in Autoconf 2.50 which
adl> now always compute EXEEXT.  Isn't this why Automake
adl> unconditionnaly used $(EXEEXT) ?

Yes.  And this means that if you are using autoconf 2.50 then you must
write the target as `prog$(EXEEXT)'.  Anything else would be
incorrect, I think.  I've made a note so that I'll be sure to document
this.  This is a bit ugly.  Do you think there is something better?

Tom