Re: [PATCH] {maint} More tests on macro `AM_WITH_REGEX'.

[Stefano Lattarini]

On Friday 12 November 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> Hello Stefano,
> 
> * Stefano Lattarini wrote on Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 11:08:34PM CEST:
> > This patch increase coverage for a macro I'm planning to touch
> > soon (to make it use AS_HELP_STRING).  OK for maint?
> 
> Does *anybody* use AM_WITH_REGEX?
Pratically nobody, according to google code search; the only occurrences I
found were either from more than a decade ago, or in copied of automake
tarball, or dnl'd out.

> Have you checked?
Only today, after having written and sent the patch (how smart, eh?)

> This seems so obsoleted by gnulib that I don't think
> it is worth investing any more time into.
In fact, I now think we should deprecate it, and then remove it.  WDYT?

> Both of these tests seem so low-level, and yet so unlike what any user
> code would do, that I don't really see how they help the code.  IOW, I
> fail to see how they ensure that the macro is actually useful for some
> package.
They just tried to ensure basic functionalities of AM_WITH_REGEX; that
code was the best I could concoct given my scarce knowledge of the
macro usage "in the real world".  But this is moot now.  Let's just
drop this patch, which would do more harm than good.

Thanks,
   Stefano