Re: Add support for EXTRA_DIST_LINKS

[Jacob Bachmeyer]

madmurphy wrote:
> P.S. *“If I remember correctly, Autoconf also falls back to hardlinks or
> copying the files if the system does not support symbolic links.”*: Same
> goes for my patch. I use $(LN_S) for creating the links, and that falls
> back to hardlinks when ln -s is not supported.

The difference is that your patch will fall back if the /development/ 
system does not support symlinks, while AC_CONFIG_LINKS will fall back 
if the /build/ system does not support symlinks.

Typically, the development system /will/ support symlinks, so symlinks 
will be recorded in the distribution tarball.  The GNU coding standards 
are vehemently against this because such a tarball looks fine to the 
developer, but cannot even be properly unpacked on a system that does 
not support symlinks.

What can EXTRA_DIST_LINKS achieve that AC_CONFIG_LINKS cannot?


-- Jacob