Autotools; new versions

[Charles Wilson]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Earnie Boyd wrote:

> Charles Wilson wrote:
> > 
> > What do you think?  Should I continue on this path?
> > 
> 
> I would prefer /usr/autoconf-2.13 and /usr/autoconf-2.52 for the
> directory names.  Then when autoconf-2.53 is released I can test it
> without losing autoconf-2.52.  Perhaps you could allow autoconfiguration
> to set the paths? :)

Remember that the script must parse the AC_PREREQ macro in  the target
package's configure.in file, and then choose the appropriate /usr/auto*
path.  How complicated (e.g. prone to breakage) should this logic be,
given a maze of /usr/autoconf-***/ directories?

I don't think this is really doable without fragility.  However, see
below.

> > 
> > path_stable=/usr/auto-stable
> > path_devel=/usr/auto-devel
> > 
> 
> For the values of path_stable and path_devel it would be cool if you
> checked for the presence of AUTOPATH_STABLE and AUTOPATH_DEVEL so that
> the directories could be changed on the fly.  They could even be set in
> the /etc/profile file for convenience.

Okay, now that's doable.  (Also, to force one or the other, just set the
path *yourself* to /usr/auto* -- then you'll never run these wrappers at
all.

--Chuck