Re: What is it with the dependency on config.status

[Daniel Herring]

On Sun, 1 Jan 2012, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> On 12/31/2011 12:29 AM, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> > I have seen user-induced lines in Makefile.am like these in a handful
> > of packages:
...
> >         ${pkgconfig_DATA}: ${top_builddir}/config.status
> >
> > Given that automake 1.11.1/autoconf 2.68 seem to automatically recreate
> > files specified in AC_CONFIG_FILES when configure.ac is changed, what is
> > the actual purpose/significance of this line?
> The best way to know would probably be asking the person(s) that have
> written such a line :-)
>
> My initial "knee-jerk" guess was that that line was needed for older automake
> versions, but by looking into the automake history, I've seen that the automatic
> remake rules for files depending on config.status have been around in a form or
> another since February 1996 (i.e., pre 1.0).  So I don't honestly know what the
> rationale for that line is.

I've occasionally been guilty of worse abuses of the autotools...

Take a look elsewhere in the makefile.  Does the author have the makefile 
generating one of the files in pkgconfig_DATA?  If all the files in this 
variable are listed in AC_CONFIG_FILES, then this rule probably is 
unnecessary.  If some of the files are gerated by a makefile, then this 
rule is important.

- Daniel