Subject: bug#35526: misleading documentation about flag variable ordering

From: Daniel Kahn Gillmor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2019 14:40:44 -0400

On Wed 2019-05-01 14:28:01 -0400, Nick Bowler wrote:
> On 5/1/19, Daniel Kahn Gillmor <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Flag-Variables-Ordering
>> says:
>>
>>     The reason ‘$(CPPFLAGS)’ appears after ‘$(AM_CPPFLAGS)’ or
>>     ‘$(mumble_CPPFLAGS)’ in the compile command is that users should
>>     always have the last say.
 […]
> The manual can always be improved.  Do you have a suggestion for how to
> write this paragraph to make it better?

maybe replace "users should always have the last say." with:

    most configuration options for the standard toolchain can be
    overridden later on the command line, and in those circumstances the
    user should have the last say.

(including some of the nuance you've written upthread here or elsewhere
in the manual would be great too)

Thanks for the prompt and thoughtful rsponse!

       --dg