Re: Checking for built files

[Andrej Prsa]

Hi,

thanks for the helpful tips! I'm trying to combine both answers I got
into a working scheme and I ran into the following question: how do I
test if --enable-maintainer-mode is passed to configure? I looked at
the autoconf source and found $USE_MAINTAINER_MODE and I am using it,
but since I didn't see it documented anywhere I wonder if that's the
right way to do this.

> Here is an example project that illustrates this.  It requires a
> `mygen' program to build a source.  If the program isn't available
> but the source is available, the build will succeed.  Otherwise the
> user will get an error saying that a required program wasn't found.

Would it be considered bad practice to test for the missing tools at
configure stage rather than the building stage *if* maintainer mode is
enabled? I think it would be more user-friendly if configure could
catch that the build will fail rather than wait for the failure itself;
I might be spoiled, but I got used to autoconf'ed packages to build
without a glitch once configure stage is complete with no errors. :)

Andrej