On Sunday 20 March 2011, Peter Johansson wrote:
> Hello Stefano,
> 
> On 3/19/11 8:36 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> >
> > Another viable approach would be to install the third-party macro file
> > in `$(third-party-prefix)/share/aclocal', and then extend the file
> > `$(aclocal-prefix)/share/aclocal/dirlist' to list that directory too; but
> > this would mean *modify* a possibly pre-existing file (and in a hard-coded
> > location too), and I'm not sure this is a wise move (but maybe might be
> > worth citing in the documentation anyway... Opinions?)
> >
> IMVHO that doesn't sound like an improvement. Say that I, e.g., install 
> an old version of GSL with --prefix=/usr/local/gsl-1.6. That doesn't 
> mean I want aclocal to look for m4 files in 
> `/usr/local/gsl-1.6/share/aclocal'. And what happens with all the times 
> I install my own package within distcheck, would that prefix 
> (`pwd`/_inst) also be added in `dirlist'?
> 
> > Finally, note that this problem should be ameliorated once the pending
> > patches introducing support for the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable
> > are merged:
> >   <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2010-11/msg00089.html>
> > At that point, a thid-party package providing macro files can install them
> > into `$(third-party-prefix)/share/aclocal', and then tell the user to
> > extend the system-wide definition of ACLOCAL_PATH accordingly (somewhat
> > similarly to what libtool install rules does with `LD_LIBRARY_PATH').
> 
> Sounds good.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter
> 
OK, now we have ACLOCAL_PATH support implemented into maint, so it's time to
fix this bug.  I'll push the attached patch to maint in a couple of days if
there is no objection.

Regards,
  Stefano