[lug] [OT] automake question

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Scott" == Scott Herod <herod at dimensional.com> writes:

Scott> For better or worst, one thing that the existing Makefiles do
Scott> is allow people to add source files without touching any of the
Scott> Makefiles.

Scott> I tried doing so with something like:
Scott>     main_SOURCES = @f_main_srcs@

Scott> Makefile.am:6: `main_SOURCES' includes configure substitution

Bad news: this is something you can't do with automake.  New automakes
give an error, as above; old ones just generate bad code.

This idea comes up from time to time on the automake list.  You can
read all the discussions (some reasoned, some not :-) in the archives.

Basically, automake needs to know the source file names statically in
order to implement certain features.  Also, I've long opposed this
feature on robustness grounds; I think the current maintainers are
also opposed.

Tom