Re: detect old Automake

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Peter,

* Peter Johansson wrote on Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 05:23:05PM CET:
> [...] AC_PREREQ exits with status
> 63 when compiled with an old Autoconf. I wonder if there is a
> similar trick available for Automake.

Well, you can put a minimum version number in the OPTIONS argument of
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE, or in a 'AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS =' line in Makefile.am.

> For consistency and
> convenience it would be nice if Automake also returned 63 when an
> too old version was used.

Well, automake will exit 1 if too old.  Sorry.

> Is there any reason against that or would a patch be welcome?

Changing that to 63 is probably a good idea (but we'd need to check
whether throughout autotools there is no expectance of the other value),
but by very definition of this issue even acceptance of that patch won't
help you: old versions will forever use the old semantics.

Patches are always welcome when they conform to the usual guidelines
(see HACKING in the git tree; including a test, ChangeLog entry,
documentation update, and having copyright issues taken care of for
nontrivial changes).

Cheers,
Ralf