Subject: Re: bug#33166: automake --add-missing does not install config.rpath when AM_ICONV is used

From: Hans-Bernhard Bröker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2018 14:46:34 +0200

Am 27.10.2018 um 12:48 schrieb Stuart Caie:

> I understand that there is a boundary between these two packages, and
> this is not directly automake's problem, even though the main mechanism
> for copying missing files is in automake.

Not for this file it isn't, because as far as automake is concerned,
this is not a missing file.  It's just a file you might or might not
have, and if you do have it, automake should do a thing or two with it,
automatically.

Automake has mechanism for copying important files from your fully
equipped source tree into the distributed tarball.  config.rpath is
among the list of these files (a fact I had overlooked before --- my bad).

Automake also has a mechanism for copying/linking missing files from its
own storage into your source tree.  config.rpath is not among these
files, and it can't be, because it really is not part of automake.

> I think I have a corner case. I need iconv but not gettext. 

Well, then that's a bug in gettext that it doesn't currently let you do
that quite as readily as you would like it to.  As-is, you _do_ need
gettext for this, if only for it to supply config.rpath.

> How do you think this corner case should be handled?

By addressing this to gettext.

> 3) AM_ICONV invokes AC_LIB_RPATH invokes AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE which
> signals automake to complain if config.rpath is missing -- can automake
> copy config.rpath at that time?

No, because it doesn't have one to copy.