Subject: bug#14685: aclocal and AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR

From: Werner LEMBERG <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 09:44:45 +0200 (CEST)

> That's because AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR (provided by Autoconf) is only
> meant to accept one directory as its argument.  For two or more
> dirs, you should use AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS instead (which BTW also
> works if only one dir is given, so I'd suggest you to
> unconditionally prefer it over AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR).

Well, AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS is not in autoconf 2.69, and 2.70 is not
released yet...  Ideally, automake provides this until 2.70 is out :-)

>>   aclocal: error: couldn't open directory 'gnulib/m4 m4':
>>                   No such file or directory
>>
> ... I see this error message is definitely unclear;

I don't think so, the error message is just fine if the background is
known.  However, I think it's a bad idea to make it a fatal error.  A
warning is fully sufficient IMHO.

> it could be improved to suggest you to use AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS
> whenever you have to or more m4 directories.

Yes.  If opening a directory fails, and the directory name contains a
space, tell the user that AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR accepts one directory
only.  And if AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS is available, suggest to use this
macro instead.

    Werner