bug#11034: Binutils, GDB, GCC and Automake's 'cygnus' option

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Joseph, thanks for the feedback.

On 03/28/2012 01:24 PM, Joseph S. Myers wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> 
>> But this option is going to be deprecated in Automake 1.12.1 and removed in
>> Automake 1.13:
>>
>>   <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=11034>
> 
> That page isn't very helpful since it doesn't give the non-deprecated way 
> to achieve each part of the effect of "cygnus" if still desired
>
By reading this:

  <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Cygnus>

you can see how to emulate part of the 'cygnus' effects by other means.

However, it's also clear that it won't be possible to 100% emulate the effect
of cygnus with other options/hacks; in particular the second, fourth and last
points there:

  - texinfo.tex is not required if a Texinfo source file is specified. The
    assumption is that the file will be supplied, but in a place that
    Automake cannot find. This assumption is an artifact of how Cygnus
    packages are typically bundled.

  - Certain tools will be searched for in the build tree as well as in the
    user's PATH. These tools are runtest, expect, makeinfo and texi2dvi.

  - The check target doesn't depend on all.

will basically be impossible to emulate.

> (I think avoiding info documentation being built in the source directory,
> so that builds could use a non-writable source directory, may have been
> one part).
>
There is probably some hack to obtain this effect (it's tested in the testsuite
somewhere), but my opinion is that if you distribute the generated info files
you should also have them generated in the source directory, to avoid nasty
surprises (for a similar issue, involving yacc and lex, see automake bug#10852,
in particular messages <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=10852#14>
and <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=10852#15>).

> Is there better transition documentation somewhere?
>
Nope, but it would be a good idea to prepare it before starting to deprecate
the 'cygnus' option.  Maybe even for 1.12.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Regards,
  Stefano