More flexibility in Autotools tools to override arguments and avoid all default arguments

[czoido]

Changelog: Fix: Use DESTDIR argument in make install step instead of using the --prefix in configure.
Changelog: Feature: More flexibility in Autotools tools to override arguments and avoid all default arguments for make, autoreconf and configure.
Docs: conan-io/docs#2562

Some notes:

• As suggested in this issue, we are using now DESTDIR argument for make install.
• As a side effect, we can remove the second configure in install and put the build_script_folder argument back in the configure method instead of having it in the constructor.
• Also, now that we don't have to use the package_folder for the --prefix argument, I have removed the default_configure_install_args attribute and moved the default install arguments to the toolchain.

Closes: #11265
Closes: #11264

[mattyclarkson]

If one sets default_configure_install_args to False, they may not want the DESTDIR either.

Having used the tools in anger for a bit, having extra arguments added under the hood seems to be an anti pattern and hides the magic.

Personally, I would much prefer if autotoolstoolchain auto populated the autoreconf_args/configure_args/make_args and I could modify them as I see fit before generation.

Usage would then be:

    def generate(self) -> None:
        at = AutotoolsToolchain(self)
        print(at.autoreconf_args) # has the `--force` and `--install` arguments in
        print(at.configure_args) # has the `--prefix` and `--shared` arguments in
        print(at.make_args) # has `DESTDIR`  and `-j` in it
        # I know _exactly_ will be passed to `autoreconf`, `configure` and `make`

I'd even argue adding --enable-checking=fatal would be a good default that users can easily remove with:

        at.configure_args = [a for a in at.configure_args if a.startswith("--enable-checking")]

Then, if I have a really wonky package I can customise the arguments entirely. There are so many odd autotools packages in the wild.

[czoido]

Thanks a lot for the review @mattyclarkson, I think something in that direction would make sense, I'll add some changes to see how it looks

[memsharded]

@mattyclarkson this is looking better for me now, but it would be great if you could have a look to the changes and see if they align with your expectations.

[memsharded]

Merged, because we need to start branching 1.49, but please @mattyclarkson if you have any feedback, it would be great to have it. Thanks!

[mattyclarkson]

Merged, because we need to start branching 1.49, but please @mattyclarkson if you have any feedback, it would be great to have it. Thanks!

Yo, sorry, I was AFK for a while taking a break. This looks great 🎉 Thanks for the changes. We will roll to the newer versions and try it out. If we have any extra feedback, I'll make sure to create an issue but this looks in great shape for 2.0.

[mattyclarkson]

Whilst getting familiar with the Conan code base, I noticed this Python anti-pattern.

The code base could simplify the code flow by moving towards immutable tuples rather than mutable lists.

# Python3 with expandable iterables syntax
def autoreconf(self, args=("--force", "--install")):
    command = join_arguments(("autoreconf", self._autoreconf_args, *args))
    with chdir(self, self._conanfile.source_folder):
        self._conanfile.run(command)

# Python2/3 with extending from iterables
def autoreconf(self, args=("--force", "--install")):
    command = ["autoreconf"]
    command.extend(self._autoreconf_args)
    command.extend(args)
    with chdir(self, self._conanfile.source_folder):
        self._conanfile.run(command)

The above is totally valid because the static binding of the tuple to the args is immutable it is not possible to change the bound value within the function. This is a common problem in code bases that use mutable bindings in argument defaults which we are avoiding by using None. i.e. the following would break terribly:

def autoreconf(self, args=["--force", "--install"]):
    args.append("foobar")  # everytime `autoreconf` is invoked `args` gets longer

In general, I personally use immutable values as much as possible to avoid unintended side effects. It's a shame that Python doesn't have records for immutable dictionaries.

[mattyclarkson]

It seems a common pattern in Conan that self.run needs to join arguments. It would be pretty neat if, run could accept an iterable and automatically join them:

    def run(self, command, output=True, cwd=None, win_bash=False, subsystem=None, msys_mingw=True,
            ignore_errors=False, run_environment=False, with_login=True, env="conanbuild"):
        if not isinstance(co```py
    def run(self, command, output=True, cwd=None, win_bash=False, subsystem=None, msys_mingw=True,
            ignore_errors=False, run_environment=False, with_login=True, env="conanbuild"):
        if not isinstance(command, str) and isinstance(command, abc.Iterable):
            command = join_arguments(command)
```mmand, str) and isinstance(command, abc.Iterable):
            command = join_arguments(command)

For Conan v2.0 where we can shed Python 2, I'd change that API to force keywords and allow passing multiple arguments:

    def run(self, *command, output=True, cwd=None, win_bash=False, subsystem=None, msys_mingw=True,
            ignore_errors=False, run_environment=False, with_login=True, env="conanbuild"):
        command = join_arguments(command)

Then it can be used more naturally:

self.run("autoreconf", "--force", "--install", env="conanrun")