Re: How to use alternative autoconf than what is located in /usr/local/bin (for automake compile)?

[Stefano Lattarini]

On Monday 23 May 2011, Graham Reitz wrote:
> Is their a configure switch to indicate that an alternative autoconf
> should be used, rather than defaulting to the autoconf located in
> /usr/local/bin?
>
Yes: override the AUTOCONF and AUTOM4TE variables (yes, you need
to override both); e.g.:

 ./configure AUTOCONF=/opt/bin/autoconf AUTOM4TE=/opt/bin/autom4te

That's admittedly not very obvious or natural for someone who's not
familiar with automake internals.  Maybe adding a `--with-autoconf'
flag (or similar) to configure would be nice on our part.

> With other gnu build deps there is often a --with-*dep=$path_to_dep.
> Is there an equivalent when building automake from source?
>

> Host platform: OS X 10.6.7
> 
Just out of curiousity: how old is this release, and which autoconf version
are they shipping with it?

> configure command-line:
> 
> ./../gnu/automake/automake-1.11/configure --prefix=$HOME/Devel
> opment/root/usr/local --with-autoconf=$HOME/Development/root/usr/local/bin
> 
> configure output:
> 
> checking whether autoconf is installed... yes
> checking whether autoconf works... yes
> checking whether autoconf is recent enough... no
> configure: error: Autoconf 2.61a-341 or better is required.
>
> 
> graham
> 

HTH,
  Stefano