Re: [gimp-devel] [gtk-list] strange automake configure problem

[Tim Mooney <mooney dogbert cc ndsu NoDak edu>]

On 21 Mar 1998, Tom Tromey wrote:

>This failure occurs because all .m4 files installed by programs other
>than automake must end up in the same directory as the m4 files
>installed by automake.  If you install different things with different
>'--prefix'es, then you'll run into this problem.
>
>The fix is to make a symlink from aclocal's preferred directory to
>wherever it is installed in your Gtk tree.  Then start over with
>autogen.sh.
>
>aclocal finds its macros in $datadir/aclocal/.  So if you installed
>with --prefix=/usr/local, that would be /usr/local/share/aclocal.

You're right that this sucks, because for large packages (gimp + plugins with
debugging information is well over 100 Megabytes on alpha-dec-osf4.0+) it's
sometimes necessary to install using a different prefix.  Also, I usually
install X programs with their files under ${whatever}/X11 (i.e.
--includedir=/local/include/X11, --datadir=/local/share/X11, etc).

>I agree that this situation sucks.  Suggestions for how it could be
>improved are welcome.

Could `aclocal' be modified to tell someone where it expects to find the .m4
files when given a command line flag?  Something like

	aclocal --where-are-your-files

;-) would output (in my case) `/local/share/aclocal'

and then a simple configure test could be called to find the right directory
to install the `*.m4' file(s) for any package that wants to install `*.m4'
files.

Tim
-- 
Tim Mooney                              mooney@dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak.edu
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