Re: stdint module rewrite

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Bruno,

* Bruno Haible wrote on Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 03:08:11PM CEST:
> Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, but that's basically the only part that breaks this way.  And only
> > one part of the AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED, namely the part that needs to be
> > traceable for autoheader: the AH_TEMPLATE call.  So you can split the
> > macro in the same way that AC_CHECK_HEADERS uses.
> 
> Nice trick! To do most of the work in a "for ... in" loop, and only the
> AH_TEMPLATE and AC_SUBST calls in an AC_FOREACH . With this trick, the
> stdint.m4 expansion goes down to a reasonable size. Thanks!!

My previous answer was a bit confused, because it did not mention one
argument in the train of thought: of course you don't necessarily need
this split in order to be able to use future Autoconf 3's macros which
itself will make use of shell functions.

But, if you eventually want to rewrite your own macro to use shell
functions, so that users of your macro have the equal benefit that you
have of Autoconf 3's macros, then you need exactly this splitting that
you're doing now, into parts amenable to shell functions and the rest.
With some luck, the rest (traces input and such) can be written to
expand to maybe-sizable M4 code but very little remaining shell code.
:-)

And, if everyone would do this work now, the need for shell functions in
Autoconf would go down... just kidding.

Cheers,
Ralf