Re: 'make dist' and m4 directory

[Jeffrey Sheinberg]

Ralf Corsepius writes:
 > I fail to understand what you are trying to say.
 > 
 > AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR (DIR) is defined as:
 >      Future versions of `autopoint', `libtoolize', `aclocal' and
 >      `autoreconf' will use directory DIR as the location of additional
 >      local Autoconf macros.  Be sure to call this macro directly from
 >      `configure.ac' so that tools that install macros for `aclocal' can
 >      find the declaration before `--trace' can be called safely.
 > 
 > > As I pointed out, automake cetainly has enough information to
 > > automatically include the m4/ directory in the dist tarball, but
 > > it does not do this - the workaround being EXTRA_DIST.
 > This is not how it is supposed to work.

>From the autoconf info file,

    Similarly, packages that use `aclocal' should declare where
    local macros can be found using `AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR'.

I intended to put some local macros into the m4/ directory.  These
macros would be needed for the ./configure script to work,
therefore they need to be included into the dist tarball.

Do you agree with the preceeding paragraph?

If you do agree, then my point is that automake should be smart
enough to recognize that the m4/ directory be included in the dist
tarball.

In addition, from the automake info file,

    The second possibility, which we do recommend, is to write
    each macro in its own file and gather all these files in a
    directory.  This directory is usually called `m4/'.  To build
    `aclocal.m4', one should therefore instruct `aclocal' to scan
    `m4/'.  From the command line, this is done with `aclocal -I
    m4'.  The top-level `Makefile.am' should also be updated to
    define

      ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4

Likewise, now automake has another reason to include the m4/
directory in the dist tarball.

I repeat, the problem is that without "EXTRA_DIST += m4", make
distcheck fails, because the m4/ directory has not been included
in the dist tarball.

Do you remember when we discussed this on the autoconf list?  In a
nutshell, I had a working package (make distcheck worked
perfectly), then I followed the advice of the above paragraph from
the automake manual, and lo and behold, make distcheck did not
work anymore.

So you kindly and correctly suggested that I need "EXTRA_DIST +=
m4" added to Makefile.am, which solved my immediate problem.

However, I consider this to be workaround for a problem in
automake.  At the very least, the automake manual should note that
such a workaround is needed, preferably to be included the above
"... which we do recommend..." paragraph.

-- 
Jeffrey Sheinberg