automake and dependencies (was: Re: BeOS PPC Compilation Fixes)

On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 01:57:44AM -0800, Greg Stein wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 03:39:12AM -0600, Sam TH wrote:
> > On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 01:26:28AM -0800, Greg Stein wrote:
>...
> > > > --include-deps removes the gcc dependency generation command, which
> > > > other compilers understandably don't like.
>...
> I'm not sure what the right answer is currently. For people using GCC, we
> still want the deps. But yes: we also need to work for non-GCC users...

Damn. I just looked into this some. It is a complicated problem.

1) automake must use gcc. non-gcc users are out of luck.
2) putting --include-deps seems to have some funny implications beyond just
   omitting the dependency generation. There seems to be something in there
   about including the dependencies into Makefile.in when distros are built.
3) automake 1.5 will include a portable dep generator
   a) there is no known release date for this
4) APR has a dep generation thingy that we might be able to lift. it still
   uses GCC, but is more easily extended to omit it or replace it.

So... this is a bigger decision / change than I'd like to make tonite. For
now, just keep that line in your private version. When you do a "cvs
update", it will just get merged into any updates so you should be fine.

(of course, fresh copies or other users will run into the same problem)

SVN people: thoughts?

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/