Re: Skip all version checks with autoconf?

[Keith Marshall]

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On 27/08/18 15:42, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Aug 2018, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
> 
>> Indeed. When considering addition of a new macro call to
>> configure.ac it often requires a lot of digging (usually from
>> NEWS) to find out if using that macro is safe with current
>> minimum autoconf version requirement. It would be really good if
>> the documentation about macros would say what version of autoconf
>> introduced them, or made an API change (such as starting to
>> support additional parameters) to them.
> 
> The most recent Autoconf release is quite a long time ago (2012,
> and it is 2018 already) so these concerns are a surprise to me.
> 
> Why is it so difficult to support a version which has been stable
> for 6 years already?

It isn't really autoconf's fault, but rather client projects which
misuse the version checking features.  For example, when creating a
cross-native GCC-6.3.0 build for MinGW.org, I discovered a bogus
configuration check, which prevented cross-compiling the gnat
libraries; (there was even a comment, IIRC, which suggested that the
maintainer knew that the test was bogus).  In consultation with said
maintainer, we came up with a corrected test.  I fixed it in the
relevant configure.ac, but when I ran autoreconf, I was advised to
"upgrade" my autoconf to version 2.64 ... I already have 2.69!  (And
yes, I do realize that this is GCC going way beyond the restrictions
AC_PREREQ might be expected to impose).

If projects as venerable as GCC can get this so badly wrong, what
chance for the rest?  In my case, I ended up manually hacking
configure itself, to achieve the desired correction.

- -- 
Regards,
Keith.

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