Re: Trying to run CVS autoconf and I get _m4_divert_diversion

[Akim Demaille]

| To whom it may concern,
| I download the latest CVS and on MySQL-3.23.39 source.  I made a lot of
| changes to configure.in and I want to generate a new configure.  I run
| aclocal  no errors.  I then run autoconf and I get the message below.
| 
|  > autoconf
| ./aclocal.m4:332: error: m4_defn: undefined macro: _m4_divert_diversion
| acoldnames.m4:86: AM_PROG_INSTALL is expanded from...
| ./aclocal.m4:332: the top level
| 
| Could someone help.  I find this in the autoconf directory.  So I thought
| a make install would add this macro.
| 
| ./configure
| make
| make check
| make install
| 
| and I still get this error.
| 
| Thanks for any help.

New Macros
----------

   Because Autoconf has been dormant for years, Automake provided
Autoconf-like macros for a while.  Autoconf 2.50 now provides better
versions of these macros, integrated in the `AC_' namespace, instead of
`AM_'.  But in order to ease the upgrading via `autoupdate', bindings
to such `AM_' macros are provided.

   Unfortunately Automake did not quote the name of these macros!
Therefore, when `m4' find in `aclocal.m4' something like
`AC_DEFUN(AM_TYPE_PTRDIFF_T, ...)', `AM_TYPE_PTRDIFF_T' is expanded,
replaced with its Autoconf definition.

   Fortunately Autoconf catches pre-`AC_INIT' expansions, and will
complain, in its own words:

     $ cat configure.in
     AC_INIT
     AM_TYPE_PTRDIFF_T
     $ aclocal-1.4
     $ autoconf
     ./aclocal.m4:17: error: m4_defn: undefined macro: _m4_divert_diversion
     actypes.m4:289: AM_TYPE_PTRDIFF_T is expanded from...
     ./aclocal.m4:17: the top level
     $

   Future versions of Automake will simply no longer define most of
these macros, and will properly quote the names of the remaining macros.
But you don't have to wait for it to happen to do the right thing right
now: do not depend upon macros from Automake as it is simply not its job
to provide macros (but the one it requires by itself):

     $ cat configure.in
     AC_INIT
     AM_TYPE_PTRDIFF_T
     $ rm aclocal.m4
     $ autoupdate
     autoupdate: `configure.in' is updated
     $ cat configure.in
     AC_INIT
     AC_CHECK_TYPES([ptrdiff_t])
     $ aclocal-1.4
     $ autoconf
     $