Re: "Deleted header file" problem: aclocal.m4 deps

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Eric,

* Eric Blake wrote on Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 03:17:51AM CEST:
> According to Eric Blake on 7/4/2007 9:10 PM:
> > According to Ralf Wildenhues on 9/17/2006 12:54 PM:
> > 
> >> The "deleted header file" problem that was solved for object file
> >> dependency generation a long time ago also affects aclocal.m4
> >> generation.
> > 
> >>    * lib/am/configure.am (%?REGEN-ACLOCAL-M4%): New target
> >>    $(am__aclocal_m4_deps) without any dependencies, to avoid the
> >>    "deleted .m4 file" problem.
> >>    * tests/acloca22.test: New test.
> >>    * tests/Makefile.am: Update.
> > 
> > I have been using this patch locally on one machine, and have not noticed
> > any ill effects.  And on another machine, where I do not have the patch
> > applied, I once again ran into the problem with gnulib's recent rename of
> > allocsa->malloca, which had no problems on the first machine.  Any chance
> > you can revive and include this patch?
> 
> Ping?  I'll go ahead and apply this if no counterarguments are given
> during the next week.

I can see two possible counterarguments, which is why I would be
grateful if Alexandre could comment:

- this way, you won't notice if you accidentally deleted the file (say,
  because there exists an installed version that provides the macro).
  The analogy wrt. installed C/C++ header files only goes so far:
  distributed uninstalled header files that never have an installed
  equivalent are very common and provoke a failure from the
  preprocessor.
- I'm not totally sure automake won't be able to (mis)interpret the
  added line at some point in the future (or now, FWIW).

If those issues aren't a big problem, then I'd all be for putting this
into HEAD (including a NEWS entry).  I mean, that's why I wrote the
patch in the first place.  ;-)

Cheers, and thanks for keeping this alive,
Ralf