bug#25268: 25.1; configure.ac libpng search error

[James K. Lowden]

configure.ac uses libpng-config, if installed, to determine the include
directive for the PNG library.  Unfortuately, it does not correctly use
libpng-config for the linker flags.  Consequently, it may mismatch the
header file to the library.  In my case, configure misdiagnosed my
setup, and recommended --no-png.

On my system, a libpng-config was installed by the Anaconda scientific
Python package distribution.  Because I had allowed Anaconda to place
itself earlier in the path than /usr/bin, that is the version configure
used.  I suspect the error I describe below has not been detected before
because my setup is unusual.

First, let's see what libpng-config has to say on my system: 

$ for opt in cflags ldflags libs
do
        cmd="libpng-config --$opt"
        printf "%-25s: %-s\n" "$cmd" "$($cmd)"
done
libpng-config --cflags   : -I/usr/local/anaconda/include/libpng16
libpng-config --ldflags  : -L/usr/local/anaconda/lib -lpng16
libpng-config --libs     : -lpng16

Now, let's look at how libpng-config is used in configure.ac:

$ grep -n libpng-config configure.ac
3412:    png_cflags=`(libpng-config --cflags) 2>&AS_MESSAGE_LOG_FD` &&
3413:    png_libs=`(libpng-config --libs) 2>&AS_MESSAGE_LOG_FD` || {
3414:      # libpng-config does not work; configure by hand.

As you can see, png_libs relies on

   libpng-config --libs

not

   libpng-config --ldflags

The produced configure script therefore finds an include file under
ananconda, but does not provide the associated -L option to the
linker.  The configure test fails because a symbol declared in the
header file is not supplied by the (older) libpng found by the linker.  

I believe the fix is to change line 3413 of configure.ac to read:

    png_libs=`(libpng-config --ldflags) 2>&AS_MESSAGE_LOG_FD` || {

although IMO that's not quite sufficient, because it doesn't set RPATH.  

I worked around the problem before completely diagnosing it simply by
renaming /usr/local/anaconda to /usr/local/.anaconda, taking it out of
the PATH and causing configure not to find it.  The outputs are:

    $ /usr/bin/libpng-config --cflags --libs
    -I/usr/include/libpng12
    -lpng12

which worked just fine.  In fact, I used report-emacs-bug in the newly
built emacs to send this message.

The rest of this message was produced by report-emacs-bug.  I include it
in case there are details you can use.

Humbly submitted,

--jkl




In GNU Emacs 25.1.2 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.18.9)
 of 2016-12-17 built on willow.schemamania.org
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11804000
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