libcpp's aclocal.m4 regeneration question. Also is it time for a toplevel "m4" directory?

[Zack Weinberg]

Paolo Bonzini <paolo.bonzini@polimi.it> writes:

> Another nice project would be to use aclocal also in directories that do 
> not use Automake.

Ya.

> While I agree that splitting macros across several files would be a good 
> move, I do not see how it would reduce the size of aclocal.m4 (aclocal 
> 1.8.5 already uses m4_include for .m4 files *within the tree*) and, 
> especially, of configure scripts.

Well, if *all* the macros defined in *all* the aclocal.m4 files were
moved to config/foo.m4 files, then the aclocal.m4 files would reduce
to just a series of m4_include operations.

You're right that this wouldn't help at all with the size of configure
scripts; there's no way to change that without changing basic design
principles of Autoconf itself (no use of shell functions, no use of
the '.'  command).

> Zack: I'm working on the libcpp Makefile now.

Thanks.

zw