Re: [PATCH] Improve support for non-default autotools in rebuild rules.

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Stefano,

* Stefano Lattarini wrote on Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 07:00:08PM CEST:
> Note that I have not yet run the whole testsuite on this change; I will if
> you tell me you're interested in the patch.

I'm intrigued by the fact that there appears to be a bug in the current
implementation.  I agree with you in finding the patch not exactly
clean.  ;-)

Why are you not suggesting AM_MISSING_PROG([AUTOM4TE], [autom4te])?  I
guess I don't really see why searching for autom4te is somehow a better
a idea than finding out which autom4te autoconf actually uses: that is,
either $AUTOM4TE if set, or the thing that was compiled in, which at
least is guaranteed to match the Autoconf version which autoconf comes
from.  And from a user standpoint, I'm sure some would be surprised to
see their configure script search for a behind-the-scenes tool they
never knew was being used at all.

Of course, with AM_MISSING_PROG there is still the problem that I think
neither of autoconf, autoheader, ..., aclocal, automake are prepared for
a return value of 63 from autom4te, which should probably let them
return 63 as well.  Haven't checked though.

Cheers,
Ralf