Re: autoconf

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2000 at 02:09:45PM +0100, Christian T. Steigies wrote:
> I am trying to package a program using autoconf, automake, the whole bunch
> of it. I have no experiance with that, my problem is, after building the
> package, config.in, configure, Makefile, Makefile.am have changed and I get
> a huge diff file for the package (I needed several tries to build).


> I think, the source should be in its original state again after building,
> how can I achieve this? Do I have to save these files before buildiing and
> restore them again?

I don't think this is important.

> Should I delete them in the clean target and create them all again from
> whatever input files (and how)?

That would increase the build time, but you can do it. Just re-run automake
and autoconf in the build: rule of debian/rules, prior to ./configure.

> Id like to have a small diff, since I did not change anything with the other
> files, they  just get changed, because the aupstream author uses newer
> packages than me. I think its not good to have such a huge (superflous) diff
> for the source package, since those files probably get rebuilt anyhow on
> other arches?

Actually, they only get rebuilt if the date/time on the .in file is newer
than the date/time on the resulting file, which shouldn't be the case
usually...

I suggest that you either don't change the *.in files, but do your changes
through commandline arguments/variables or some other way, or to just get in
sync with the upstream regarding the version of autoconf/automake you use.

There shouldn't be anything wrong in large diff because of generated files
changes, except the utter ugliness :)    

-- 
enJoy -*/\*- don't even try to pronounce my first name