Re: Can't open configure

[Braden McDaniel]

On Sun, 2008-10-05 at 19:36 +0200, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Braden McDaniel wrote on Sun, Oct 05, 2008 at 07:23:40PM CEST:
> > On Sun, 2008-10-05 at 12:21 +0200, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > > * Braden McDaniel wrote on Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 09:17:42AM CEST:
> > > >         $ autoreconf
> > > >         acinclude.m4:6596: the serial number must appear before any 
> > > > macro definition
> > > >         autom4te: cannot open configure: Permission denied
> > > >         autoreconf: /usr/bin/autoconf failed with exit status: 1
> > > >         
> > > > The autoconf version is 2.61. The libtool version is 1.5.24.
> > > > 
> > > > I started seeing this after modifying my project to include a local copy
> > > > of the libltdl sources. The acinclude.m4 referenced in the error message
> > > > is the one in the libltdl subdirectory created by "libtoolize --ltdl".
> > > > 
> > > > Blowing away autom4te.cache does not help.
> > > 
> > > OK, please go in the toplevel source tree and show output of
> > >   ls -la . libltdl autom4te.cache libltdl/autom4te.cache
> > 
> > Here it is:
> > 
> >         $ ls -la . libltdl autom4te.cache libltdl/autom4te.cache/
> [...]
> >         libltdl:
> >         total 44
> 
> >         lrwxrwxrwx  1 braden braden    39 2008-10-03 02:51 acinclude.m4 -> 
> > /usr/share/libtool/libltdl/acinclude.m4
> >         -rw-rw-r--  1 braden braden 32675 2008-10-03 02:51 aclocal.m4
> >         drwxr-xr-x  2 braden braden  4096 2008-10-05 13:04 autom4te.cache
> 
> >         lrwxrwxrwx  1 braden braden    36 2008-10-03 02:51 configure -> 
> > /usr/share/libtool/libltdl/configure
> >         lrwxrwxrwx  1 braden braden    39 2008-10-03 02:51 configure.ac -> 
> > /usr/share/libtool/libltdl/configure.ac
> 
> OK, the issue is that in the libltdl directory, aclocal.m4 is
> regenerated, and configure is a symlink that points to a read-only
> location.

Aha... So the serial number message is more-or-less unrelated (and
nonfatal).

> I remember that we did some work in this area, but IIRC we only took
> care not to install a symlink for aclocal.m4; I don't remember needing
> to do work for configure.  But also this was quite likely in Libtool 2.2
> only.
> 
> Can you be bothered to retry with the current Libtool and libltdl
> (2.2.6) and current Autoconf (2.63) and report back, please?

I'll see if I can get to this.

> Please note that a workaround for this is to use the --no-recursive
> option for the upper autoreconf, to keep it from entering the libltdl
> directory.

Unfortunately that means it wouldn't recurse into my other
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS, either.  A more palatable workaround (for me) is to
use "libtoolize -c"; configure can then be overwritten.

I'm coming around to the conclusion, though, that regardless of this
problem, "libtoolize --ltdl" is not what I want for my project.

      * My project is a library; thus, using libltdl as a convenience
        library is not generally desirable.  While I wouldn't mind
        giving users this approach as an option, the potential
        side-effects are such that I'd want to make a user ask
        specifically for this mode of operation.
      * I think the notion of having arbitrary projects install libltdl
        is not philosophically sound.  Thus, I would not care to enable
        my project to potentially participate in this.

So at the moment I'm leaning toward the idea that all I need, at most,
is AC_CHECK_HEADER([ltdl.h]) and AC_CHECK_LIB([ltdl], [lt_dlinit]).

-- 
Braden McDaniel                           e-mail: <address@hidden>
<http://endoframe.com>                    Jabber: <address@hidden>