[erlang-questions] Erlang and autoconf/make

[Romain Lenglet]

Bengt Kleberg wrote:
> On 2006-11-15 07:39, Romain Lenglet wrote:
> ...deleted
>
> > Since Automake is supposed to generate Makefiles that do not
> > require GNU Make, it may be a good idea to not depend on GNU
> > Make in your Makefile.am.
>
> according to a automake webpage
> (http://directory.fsf.org/automake.html): ''Automake -
> Generates Makefile.in files
> 'Automake' automatically generates make files compliant with
> the GNU coding standards. It was inspired by the 4.4 BSD make
> and include files, but aims to be portable and to confrom to
> the GNU standards for Make file variables and targets.''

But this quote tells nothing about the compatibility of Makefiles 
generated by Automake with non-GNU make programs, e.g. BSD make, 
which was the topic.

This quote only says that Automake is functionally similar to the 
non-standard features found in BSD Make: macros, loops, etc. In 
GNU, they decided to implement such features outside of Make, 
hence in Automake.

The GNU Coding Standards are referenced here about the standard 
variables (libdir, prefix, localstatedir, DESTDIR, etc. etc.) 
and targets (all, install, clean, dist, etc.). Not about GNU 
make, or about the compatibility of Automake with it.


But from information found on the web, Automake has been 
generating Makefiles that can be interpreted by Makes other than 
GNU Make, since Automake version 1.4 (around year 2000).


Regards,

-- 
Romain LENGLET
Pr. Chiba Shigeru Group
Dept. of Mathematical and Computing Sciences
Tokyo Institute of Technology