Re: HEAD: workaround for released autotools

[Gary V. Vaughan]

On 28 Aug 2005, at 20:26, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> Hi Gary,

Hey Ralf!

> * Gary V. Vaughan wrote on Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 06:30:12PM CEST:
>
> > On 27 Aug 2005, at 19:56, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> >
> > > This is an ugly (from a stylistic point of view) patch to make CVS
> > > HEAD Libtool work with Autoconf 2.59 and Automake 1.9.5, which lack
> > > features in their support for AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR: just symlink the
> > > libobj source files into $top_srcdir from bootstrap, and distribute
> > > them.
> >
> > In principle, that's fine.  The attached runs a test during bootstrap
> > to decide whether the workaround is necessary.  This simply means  
> > that
> > if the person who bootstraps a release uses a new enough (or suitably
> > patched) autotoolset then the extra copies aren't added to the dist
> > tarball.
>
> Why, oh why wait another minute for bootstrap to finish?  It's not  
> like
> this would be the first work-around for limitations in Automake 2.59.
> Besides, your patch adds about as much size to tarball as the  
> duplicate
> files do.

minute?

$ time ./tests/libobj.test -q
real    0m12.573s
user    0m4.923s
sys     0m4.714s

vs. a reconf of just $top_srcdir when nothing needs rebuilding:

$ reconfdirs=. time ./bootstrap
...
make: `doc/notes.txt' is up to date.
make: `libtoolize.in' is up to date.
make: `tests/defs.in' is up to date.
make: `tests/package.m4' is up to date.
make: `tests/testsuite' is up to date.
make: `tests/libobj.test' is up to date.
make: `libltdl/Makefile.am' is up to date.
make: `commit' is up to date.
...
      149.91 real       116.73 user        23.87 sys

vs. a fresh bootstrap of the whole tree:

$ time ./bootstrap
...
real    10m42.998s
user    9m2.650s
sys     0m49.210s

barely 2% slowdown... :->

> > > I can add a note to HACKING about this if you like.
> >
> > No need.  I think this version being self correcting as the installed
> > tools are upgraded is sufficient.
>
> Hmm.  I know more than one system where a plain "configure" without
> options will not lead to a working compiler configuration.  No, not
> everyone has config.site's employed.  I for one don't.

Are you referring to the CONFIGSITE setting from m4general.m4sh?

By self-correcting, I mean that the code in my patch needs no more
maintenance... it just stops shipping extra copies of libobj sources
as soon as people start bootstrapping with new enough autotools.

> > > OK to apply?
> >
> > I prefer the attached... ;-)
> >
> > Tested with stock 1.9.6/2.59, darwin & subdir-libobj patched
> > 1.9.6/2.5.9, and bootstrapping with one and `make dist' with the  
> > other
> > set in both  directions.
>
> Have you tested with CVS version of one, and released of the other?

No, but libobj.test can only succeed when everything required to build
subdir libobjs correctly works, so there is no need... it is  
functionally
equivalent of unpatched 1.9.6/2.59.

> Note to the actual patch: you need to quote uses of $testdir.

Okay, thanks.

> And you scribble around in the source tree should ${TMPDIR-/tmp} be  
> full.

I don't see it (apart from bootstrap itself creating the libobj.test  
script).
Besides, if $TMPDIR is full, the user has bigger problems that not  
being to
install libtool!!

> It'd been easier to leverage AS_VERSION_COMPARE, but that wouldn't  
> have
> worked on Solaris till last week, either.

And it can't detect patched tools, such as the ones I'm using at the  
moment.

> Honestly, I think this is bloat.  All 2.59/1.9.6-induced  
> workarounds are
> trivially found by a single grep.

At the moment, yes.  But this is scalable incase we want to support  
other
suboptimal (future) releases of bootstrap utilities, and it minimises  
future maintenance -- once this is in (and debugged ;-)), we can just  
forget about
it, until we need a model for doing something similar in the future.

> If on the other hand another item is
> found that needs addition to M4SH_INIT, we have to maintain several
> copies yet again.

Agreed.  Fixed in the attached version.

Cheers,
    Gary.
--
Gary V. Vaughan      ())_.  gary@ 
{lilith.warpmail.net,gnu.org},address@hidden
Research Scientist   ( '/   http://www.tkd.kicks-ass.net
GNU Hacker           / )=   http://www.gnu.org/software/{libtool,m4}
Technical Author   `(_~)_   http://sources.redhat.com/autobook

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