YLWRAP should always be found in $config_aux_dir?

[Norman Gray]

Greetings,

This is a rather tentative problem report -- I may be misunderstanding 
what should happen.

Scenario:
  * configure.ac does not define AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, but does declare 
AM_PROG_LEX, along with the corresponding snippet described in the 
autoconf manual;
  * there is a symlink ../install-sh (and ../missing, and so on) from 
an earlier/higher-level autoreconf;
  * there are multiple lex files in the directory.

Running "automake --add-missing" installs ../ylwrap as it should, but 
defines and substitutes YLWRAP to be $(top_srcdir)/ylwrap in the 
generated Makefile.in.  When this is configured, of course, this turns 
into ./ylwrap, which loses.

Automake does work out that $am_config_aux_dir is '..', but when it 
comes to defining YLWRAP, it does so using (automake.in from 1.9)

    require_conf_file ($configure_ac, FOREIGN, 'ylwrap');
    if ($config_aux_dir_set_in_configure_ac)
    {
        &define_variable ('YLWRAP', "$am_config_aux_dir/ylwrap", 
INTERNAL);
    }
    else
    {
        &define_variable ('YLWRAP', '$(top_srcdir)/ylwrap', INTERNAL);
    }

...unlike other conf files declared with require_conf_file (that is, 
mkinstalldirs, depcomp, elisp-comp, py-compile; but not those declared 
with require_conf_file_with_macro), which use $am_config_aux_dir 
unconditionally.  Since ylwrap is a file installed by automake 
(specifically by require_conf_file), I believe it is not appropriate to 
look for it in $(top_srcdir) if there is no AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR declared 
(though I confess I'd have trouble explaining to a sceptical third 
party precisely why this is so).

If I change this to

    require_conf_file ($configure_ac, FOREIGN, 'ylwrap');
    &define_variable ('YLWRAP', "$am_config_aux_dir/ylwrap", INTERNAL);

then automake works as expected, and YLWRAP is defined in Makefile.in 
as '$(top_srcdir)/../ylwrap', as nature intended.

Is something even more subtle than I think happening here, or is this, 
horrors, a bug?

Best wishes,

Norman


--
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Norman Gray  :  Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow University, UK
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/  :  www.starlink.ac.uk