Subject: bug#12845: [PATCH] AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS: improve tracing and add sanity checks

From: Adrian Bunk <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:39:11 +0200

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 04:35:38PM -0500, Nick Bowler wrote:
>...
>  (1) Packages that use ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS to specify one or more macro
>      directories and do *NOT* use AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR at all.  You
>      agreed earlier that this was a good choice for packages using
>      more than one macro directory.  I suspect it's also quite common
>      in packages that aren't using libtool.  For example, GNU Gettext
>      appears to be in this category.
>...

Even libtoolize does not enforce AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR but just issues a 
warning when only ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is present, so that might be present 
even in lintool-using packages with only one macro dir.

I begin to agree with you that AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR should be left alone 
by autoconf, with the downside that removing support for the legacy
ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS/AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR from aclocal or from libtoolize 
would not be reasonable to do within the next 5-10 years.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed