#201 Should '-no-install' be removed?

[Ryan Carsten Schmidt]

When building autogen 1.18.16 on macOS 10.13, I see the following warning three times—once each for autogen, columns, and getdefs:

libtool: warning: '-no-install' is ignored for x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0
libtool: warning: assuming '-no-fast-install' instead

If I understand correctly the documentation I read just now, it seems that -no-install should be used for things that get built but not installed. Since autogen, columns, and getdefs do get installed, I wonder if maybe this flag should not be used.

The flag was added in http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/autogen.git/commit/?id=5d22bdb4bafe5ec3f21dcbfc64b61e48ea63c5a5 but I didn't understand why from the commit message. The commit contains a lot of other changes too.

If I remove that flag from the three Makefiles, the warnings disappear, and the programs still appear to be installed and work correctly.

--- a/agen5/Makefile.am 2018-08-26 12:44:49.000000000 -0500
+++ b/agen5/Makefile.am 2020-09-16 10:16:52.000000000 -0500
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
 nodist_autogen_SOURCES = ag.c
 autogen_SOURCES = $(gen_csrc)
 autogen_LDADD   = $(LO_LIB) $(SNV_LIB) $(GUILE_LIBS)
-autogen_LDFLAGS = $(DYNAMIC_AG) $(AG_STATIC_AUTOGEN) -no-install
+autogen_LDFLAGS = $(DYNAMIC_AG) $(AG_STATIC_AUTOGEN)
 autogen_CFLAGS  = $(GUILE_CFLAGS)
 stamp_script    = $(srcdir)/mk-stamps.sh

--- a/columns/Makefile.am   2018-08-15 11:02:02.000000000 -0500
+++ b/columns/Makefile.am   2020-09-16 10:16:47.000000000 -0500
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 ## with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

 bin_PROGRAMS    = columns
-columns_LDFLAGS = -no-install
+columns_LDFLAGS =
 csrc            = opts.h columns.c opts.c
 nodist_columns_SOURCES = cols.c

--- a/getdefs/Makefile.am   2018-08-15 13:25:40.000000000 -0500
+++ b/getdefs/Makefile.am   2020-09-16 10:16:44.000000000 -0500
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 TARG = getdefs

 bin_PROGRAMS    = getdefs
-getdefs_LDFLAGS = -no-install
+getdefs_LDFLAGS =
 gdsrcs          = getdefs.h proto.h gdemit.c gdinit.c getdefs.c
 getdefs_SOURCES = proto.h
 BUILT_SOURCES   = gd.c

[Bruce Korb]

It certainly doesn't make any sense to me now, either. That happened 3 years after I retired and since retirement I've been less than fully engaged in unpaid programming. :) Today, I'm trying to take pictures of hummingbirds fighting over sugar water. Anyway, I've removed that and am going through a build check for a 5.19.93 pre-release.