Re: AC_FOREACH public?

[Keith Marshall]

On Friday 21 October 2005 10:42 pm, Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:
> >>> "KM" == Keith MARSHALL <address@hidden> writes:
>
>  KM> When I write my configure.ac, aclocal.m4, or acinclude.m4, *every*
>  KM> macro I use is, from my perspective, an *autoconf* macro.  That some
>  KM> of these are called AC_*, AS_*, m4_*, or indeed anything else, is
>  KM> not important to me -- they are still *autoconf* macros.
>
> But you are only using the top of the iceberg.  Other people
> benefit from this clear layering.
>
> When another user use `autom4te --lang=M4sh' to generate shell
> scripts that are not configure scripts, it matters that AS_* and
> m4_* are not Autoconf macros, and that m4_forearch is available.

Oh, come on!  Who, outside of your core developer team, is *ever* likely to 
do this?  Where's the documentation to make it accessible to the masses?  Why 
would anyone want to do so anyway?  If I want to write a shell script, other
than as a configure script, it's *much* more logical and convenient for me to 
just write directly as such, in the shell's own native language.

> Likewise when you use `autom4te --lang=M4sugar' to process any
> kind of input with M4+convenient macros like m4_foreach.

And again.  Where's the documentation?  What's the point?  You are simply 
trying to make an esoteric case to justify something with limited, or no 
practical application, IMHO, and you are locking yourself into that little 
developer's niche, where you forget to consider the needs of your most 
valuable asset -- your users!

Regards,
Keith.