Re: AUTOCONF ETC

[Eric Blake]

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[adding the autoconf list]

According to Takis Psarogiannakopoulos on 8/19/2008 2:10 PM:
> Hi,
> While I am about to submit some stuff about autoconf/automake/libtool to
> the lists I want ask a simple question that is not worth mentioned there:

You're better off asking it on the list anyways.  You'll reach a wider
audience of people who can help, and based on the questions, it may
provide the necessary material to help us update the manual to be useful
for the next user.

> 
> Say that I am doing some changes on configure.ac in order to be able to
> detect correctly EMC's Unix DG/UX. After all these I am always using
> 
> autoconf -I ./

`.' is already implicitly included.  You should only need -I for other
directories.

> 
> to recreate a new configure script. Also I am always making sure that I
> am using the _same_ version of autoconf with the one that the package
> initially created. Just to avoid autoconf incompatibilites.
> However when trying "make" after full run of the newly created ./configure
> --args the makefile always tries again to re-run again autoconf and most
> importanlty also tries to run automake to re-create Makefiles! Even if
> nothing has been changed there! (Or new Makefile.am, no new variables
> or anything else added)
> 
> I was wondering if you have any idea how autoconf/automake stamps the
> source package.
> 
> Ideally I want to give the command autoconf -I ./ and then timestamp the
> source code manually so it does not ever tries again to run
> autoconf/automake.  The shell command
> 
> autoconf -I ./ && touch *
> 
> doesnt seem to make the trick.

Blindly re-touching all files may be the reason that make then decides
that files are out of date, and tries to rerun autoconf in maintainer
mode.  Depending on whether the package used AM_MAINTAINER_MODE, you might
also be interested in the --enable/--disable-maintainer-mode to configure.

> 
> In a short notice it seems automake is all messed up, eg the motif 2.1.3
> has been created with autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.10 but when trying to
> re-create the package, especially run automake and aclocal, it complains
> for variables not included/missing etc and it bails out. This is very
> annoying as it should be straightforward to run same version automake on
> any package (created from that version).

It would be easier to understand your complaint if you posted sample
output that you are complaining about.

> 
> Anyway I have also some additions for autoconf, and a port of libtool
> for the DG/UX Unix. The current DG/UX configuration currently exisitng
> there is wrong. Are you the maintainer of the libtool too? Would you want
> to see an ltmain and an aclocal.m4/libtool.m4 on how libtool should be
> on DG/UX? Maybe you can integrate it to the current libtool source.

If you have a patch for libtool, then send it to the libtool lists (and
not to me personally).  Meanwhile, patches for autoconf should be sent to
address@hidden  If they are not trivial, you will also need to
assign copyright to the FSF.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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