Re: Add support for EXTRA_DIST_LINKS

[madmurphy]

Hi Karl, thank you for your message and the code review. I agree, and I
think I have got an idea. How about removing EXTRA_DIST_LINKS and adding a
Makefile variable named DIST_FLAGS *to be set on the fly*? So, for example,
imagine I have a package where my_link.txt is a symlink to the ChangeLog
file. If I launch

make dist

all links will be dereferenced as usually. But if I launch instead

make DIST_FLAGS='symlinks' dist

all links will be kept.

The DIST_FLAGS variable can be extended in the future to enable other
space-separated flags, but for now we are only introducing the symlinks
keyword (please feel free to propose other names, I am just outlining a
mechanism).

How does this sound?

Additionally we can also keep the EXTRA_DIST_LINKS, *which will still
dereference symlinks unless used in conjunction with DIST_FLAGS='symlinks'*.
This will have the advantage that symlinks will be *recreated* in case they
had got previously dereferenced, but will always be dereferenced if
DIST_FLAGS='symlinks' is not specified (100% control).

P.S. No, my name is not Jim, I prefer to go only with my nickname when I
talk about programming ;)

--madmurphy