Re: basic help for bare-boned newbie

[Akim Demaille]

| hi akim,
| first, thank you for responding!
| 
| i finally did find out what was wrong: autoconf 2.5x and 2.13 debian
| packages were both installed on my system.  the *packages* don't
| conflict but the programs do.  inadvertantly, some of what i did used
| the 2.5 tools and some used the 2.13 tools.

Arg...  I'm applying the following patch.  It should help avoiding
such pitfalls, plus anyway it is better this way.

Index: ChangeLog
from  Akim Demaille  <address@hidden>

        * bin/autoscan.in (output): Output AC_PREREQ.
        (%needed_macros): Add AC_PREREQ so that configure.ac without one
        be reported.

Index: bin/autoscan.in
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/autoconf/autoconf/bin/autoscan.in,v
retrieving revision 1.87
diff -u -u -r1.87 autoscan.in
--- bin/autoscan.in 28 Sep 2002 14:03:14 -0000 1.87
+++ bin/autoscan.in 25 Oct 2002 08:19:12 -0000
@@ -73,7 +73,10 @@
 # $NEEDED_MACROS{MACRO} is an array of locations requiring MACRO.
 # E.g., $NEEDED_MACROS{AC_FUNC_ALLOC} the list of `file:line' containing
 # `alloca (...)'.
-my %needed_macros = ();
+my %needed_macros =
+  (
+   'AC_PREREQ' => [$me],
+  );
 
 my $configure_scan = 'configure.scan';
 my $log = new Autom4te::XFile ">$me.log";
@@ -98,6 +101,8 @@
   -V, --version       print version number, then exit
   -v, --verbose       verbosely report processing
   -d, --debug         don't remove temporary files
+
+Library directories:
   -B, --prepend-include=DIR  prepend directory DIR to search path
   -I, --include=DIR          append directory DIR to search path
 
@@ -496,8 +501,11 @@
   my $file = new Autom4te::XFile ">$configure_scan";
 
   print $file
-    ("# Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.\n"
-     . "AC_INIT(FULL-PACKAGE-NAME, VERSION, BUG-REPORT-ADDRESS)\n");
+    ("#                                               -*- Autoconf -*-\n" .
+     "# Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.\n" .
+     "\n" .
+     "AC_PREREQ(@VERSION@)\n" .
+     "AC_INIT(FULL-PACKAGE-NAME, VERSION, BUG-REPORT-ADDRESS)\n");
   if (defined $cfiles[0])
     {
       print $file "AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([$cfiles[0]])\n";


| configure script was generated and it almost ran to completion.
| 
|    checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
|    checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
|    configure: error: cannot find install-sh or install.sh in . ./.. ./../..
| 
| /usr/bin/install is on my system, and is also in my PATH.  but according
| to the autoconf info page:
| 
| - Macro: AC_PROG_INSTALL
| 
|      Set output variable `INSTALL' to the path of a BSD compatible
|      `install' program, if one is found in the current `PATH'.
|      Otherwise, set `INSTALL' to `DIR/install-sh -c', checking the
|      directories specified to `AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR'
| 
| the info page also says that AC_PROG_INSTALL filters out "install"
| implementations that are known to be buggy, but i doubt GNU install is
| buggy.
| 
| i was able to get configure to complete successfully by commenting out
| AC_PROG_INSTALL in configure.in, but that's a bandaid fix.   how can i
| get configure to recognize /usr/bin/install?

That's not the problem.  Autoconf *wants* to have the script named
install-sh in the top level (or AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR).  Because *your*
machine is not what matters: the machines of other people are
Autoconf's targets.