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  • Hash : c9656c46
    Author : Bruno Haible
    Date : 2009-08-03T23:07:00

    Fix displayed message of AM_ICONV with autoconf-2.64.
    

  • README

  • Many of the files in this directory are shared between the coreutils,
    diffutils, tar and gettext packages -- and others, so if you
    change them, try to ensure that you don't break those packages.
    That's hard without a systematic approach, but here is a set of conventions
    that makes it easy.
    
    - The lib/ sources are split into modules.  Usually the module of a
      lib/foo.h and lib/foo.c is called "foo" - not unexpected, hey! -, but
      in more ambiguous cases you can look up the module a file belongs to
      by doing "grep lib/foo.c modules/*".
    
    - For every module there is an autoconf macro file, usually called
      m4/foo.m4 according to the module name.  When you modify lib/foo.h or
      lib/foo.c, remember to modify m4/foo.m4 as well!
      What if you don't find m4/foo.m4? This probably means that the module
      doesn't need autoconf support up to now (again, take a look in modules/*).
      So you might need to create one.
    
    - A module which defines a replacement function (i.e. a function which is
      compiled only on systems which lack it or where it exists but doesn't
      work satisfactorily) has a .m4 file with typically the following structure:
    
      AC_DEFUN([gl_FUNC_FOO],
      [
        AC_REPLACE_FUNCS(foo)
        if test $ac_cv_func_foo = no; then
          gl_PREREQ_FOO
        fi
      ])
    
      # Prerequisites of lib/foo.c.
      AC_DEFUN([gl_PREREQ_FOO], [
        dnl Many AC_CHECK_* invocations.
      ])
    
    - A module which is compiled on all platforms can define multiple functions
      and be spread across multiple source files (although each time you do
      this you should consider splitting the module, if the source files could
      be independent). The .m4 file has typically the following structure:
    
      AC_DEFUN([gl_FOO],
      [
        dnl Prerequisites of lib/foo.c.
        dnl Many AC_CHECK_* invocations.
    
        dnl Prerequisites of lib/foobar.c.
        dnl Many AC_CHECK_* invocations.
      ])
    
    - When a module FOO depends on a module BAR, you do *not* generally need
      to write
    
      AC_DEFUN([gl_FOO],
      [
        AC_REQUIRE([gl_BAR])
        ...
      ])
    
      because the maintainers might want to use locally modified / renamed copies
      of the module BAR.
    
    - If the autoconf tests for the modules FOO and BAR have some checks in
      common, still list them separately. Autoconf has two mechanisms for
      avoiding that a configure file runs the same test twice: AC_REQUIRE
      and AC_CACHE_CHECK. Trying to omit the checks leads to maintenance
      problems: If FOO depends on BAR, and you omit a check from FOO's .m4 file,
      later on, when someone modifies bar.c and removes the check from bar.m4,
      he will not remember that foo.c needs the check as well.
    
    - Now, how can you find the prerequisites of lib/foo.c? Try this:
        "grep '#.*if' lib/foo.c | grep -v endif"
      and for each HAVE_* macro search in the autoconf documentation what could
      be the autoconf macro that provides it. This is only an approximation; in
      general you should look at all preprocessor directives in lib/foo.c.
    
    - After ANY modifications of an m4 file, you should increment its serial
      number (in the first line). Also, if this first line features a particular
      release, _remove_ this release stamp. Example: Change
    
        # setenv.m4 serial 2 (gettext-0.11.1)
    
      into
    
        # setenv.m4 serial 3