RFC on building the header bits

[Stephen Webb]

After a brief absence, I'm back on this.

I've got a working solution to the problem of picking up the
ISO-compliant headers on Solaris 8 (or others, if available).  The
catch is, the headers need to be built.  I notice the shadow headers
also need to be built.  The shadow headers won't work right now,
because they are built by the src/Makefile, but required by the
libsupc++ build, which is a dependency of the src build (you get the
idea?).

In other words, the headers need to be built before any source gets
compiled for the library.

I've tried a few klever tricks, but automake is being very difficult
about building header files for you, at least the way we need it done. 
Some built header files are generated directly by the configure script,
and while inelegant, that will work (you just lose the dependency
tracking make can bring).

What I'm proposing, and soliciting comments on, is the idea that ALL
headers in the c/c_std/c_shadow thing get built (with the c_std headers
just being links or copies from the src to the bld area).  To get
around the automake limitations, I would add a shell script that is
invoked at confiure time that will generate the target bits from the
appropriate source (rather than just including the code in the
configure script).  This will make some of the later build
dependencies a little simpler, and installations will be a little
simpler, and I can finish this project and move on to something else.

Is this a good idea, or (a) is there some reason why it hasn't been
done already and (2) should I keep hacking out an automake solution
instead of a brute force shell script?


_______
Stephen M. Webb