Two confusing problems

[John Levon]

I hope someone can help.

I have :

automake (GNU automake) 1.4-p4
Autoconf version 2.13
ltmain.sh (GNU libtool) 1.4 (1.920 2001/04/24 23:26:18)

Someone (let's call him Steve) has :

automake (GNU automake) 1.4
Autoconf version 2.13
ltmain.sh (GNU libtool) 1.3.5 (1.385.2.206 2000/05/27 11:12:27)


1) I made a small autoconf/make project and sent him the make dist tarball.
He cannot run autogen.sh automake :

Building Makefile templates... configure.in: 15: required file `./ltconfig' not 
found


I know libtool 1.4 and above don't install ltconfig. but why cannot it not
find his present /usr/share/libtool/ltconfig for 1.3.5 ?

any clues anyone ?

running libtoolize --automake --copy --force doesn't help

Is this a compatability issue ? If so, what versions do I need to use to get
a tarball anyone can use for development ?

2) automake doesn't scan for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL, so it's kind of hard to not use
the deprecated form ???

3) I need to #define something to the value of $datadir/$PACKAGE (so that a 
library
can find its data files). I can't do this via config.h, and my scheme to use
$CXXFLAGS fails, as config.status stores the added -D, and this breaks 
subsequent
make dist etc.

How do I #define a value computed from ./configure safely so the library can 
default
to the right directory ? It would be OK if I had libMyLib_la_CXXFLAGS that 
worked
as expected or something...

thanks for any hints.

full source available on request

john

-- 
"Voodoo Programming:  Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but
 they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling
 everything."
        - Karl Lehenbauer