[PATCH 1/2] configure.ac: remove unneeded AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Dmitry,

On Tue, 2020-12-15 at 20:01 +0300, Dmitry V. Levin wrote:
> Hmm, despite all these recommendation, virtually every project that
> uses
> automake also uses ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS, and very few use
> AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR.
> 
> The documentation on AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR says that
> "you must also set 'ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I DIR'",
> so this might be the reason why AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR is not popular.
> 
> We can keep AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR, while it doesn't help, it doesn't
> harm either.

Hohum, this is slightly messy :{

So I looked at autoconf 2.70, just released and it says:

*** New macro AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS.

  This macro can be used more than once and accepts a list of
  directories to search for local M4 macros.  With Automake 1.13 and
  later, use of this macro eliminates a reason to use ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS
  in Makefile.am.

  The older AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR, which could only be used once, is
  still supported but considered deprecated.

So it looks like to get rid of ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS we need to update to
autoconf 2.70 and switch to use AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS.

I think it is too early to switch to autoconf 2.70. Currently we
require autoconf 2.63 and automake 1.11. We could probably upgrade to
autconf 2.69 and automake 1.13, but that doesn't seem to help with
AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR/ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS.

Since AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR is deprecated in 2.70 and ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is
still needed even with it set lets just go with your patch and remove
it. We can see what we do when we upgrade autoconf/automake versions.

Pushed you original patch.

Cheers,

Mark