how to patch configure.ac and not require autotools

[Laurent Rineau]

I would like to revive the following old discussion, five months ago (part of 
it is quoted bellow).

It would be nice to have usefull tips, or perhaps recommendations, in the 
wiki.

On Monday 12 June 2006 04:23, Wart wrote:
> Enrico Scholz wrote:
> > wart at kobold.org (Wart) writes:
> >>'touch', not patch.
> >>
> >>I run into this quite a lot.  In addition to patching both configure.ac
> >>and configure.in, you'll need to 'touch' all of the "Makefile.in" files
> >>in the package, since they likely have a dependency on configure.in.
> >
> > That's only needed for projects whose authors do not use
> > AM_MAINTAINER_MODE.
> >
> > Instead of touching all Makefile.in's you could restore the original
> >
> > timestamp with:
> > | touch -r configure configure.stamp
> > | ... patch configure ...
> > | touch -r configure.stamp configure
>
> That's an even better solution.  Thanks for the tip.
>
> --Mike