Re: Autoconf requires m4 and m4 requires autoconf

[Chris Karakas]

> CC: address@hidden
> Betreff: Re: Autoconf requires m4 and m4 requires autoconf


Eric,

first of all, thank you very much for the really swift response - and a happy 
New Year!

> 
> It is NOT a bug.
> http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#Bootstrapping
> 

Well, it seems that it *is* a bug. Let's see:

According to that link and what you said, I should try to install 1.4.13 first, 
then try to install autoconf.
But actually, that's *exactly* what I started to do this day!

My build system comes from an old SuSE 9.0, with whatever packages I upgraded 
by manual compilation since then. It has:

aaa_base-9.0-10
acl-2.2.15-23
attr-2.4.43-0
autoconf-2.59-79
automake-1.9.1-5
bash-3.0-15
bind-utils-9.2.2-25
binutils-2.15.94.0.2.2-3
bison-2.4-1
bzip2-1.0.2-224
coreutils-5.0-75
cpio-2.5-209
cpp-3.3.5-5
cracklib-2.8.9-20
cvs-1.11.6-54
cyrus-sasl-2.1.15-107
db-4.3.27-3
devs-9.0-4
diffutils-2.8.1-203
e2fsprogs-1.34-30
file-4.03-40
filesystem-9.0-6
fillup-1.42-9
findutils-4.1.7-710
flex-2.5.4a-195
gawk-3.1.3-53
gcc-3.3.5-5
gdbm-1.8.3-119
gdbm-devel-1.8.3-119
gettext-0.14.1-34
glibc-2.3.2-87
glibc-devel-2.3.2-87
glibc-locale-2.3.2-87
gpm-1.20.1-200
grep-2.5.1-294
groff-1.17.2-685
gzip-1.3.5-47
info-4.5-88
insserv-1.00.1-15
kbd-1.08-35
less-381-28
libacl-2.2.47-1
libattr-2.4.8-23
libgcc-3.3.5-5
libstdc++-3.3.5-5
libtool-1.5-80
libxcrypt-2.0-32
m4-1.4o-504
make-3.80-96
man-2.4.1-60
mktemp-1.5-633
modutils-2.4.25-50
ncurses-5.3-110
ncurses-devel-5.3-110
net-tools-1.60-444
netcfg-9.0-5
openldap2-client-2.1.22-65
openssl-0.9.7b-68
pam-0.77-124
pam-devel-0.77-124
pam-modules-9.0-5
patch-2.5.9-52
perl-5.8.1-46
permissions-2003.9.18-4
popt-1.7-207
ps-2003.9.20-3
rcs-5.7-764
readline-5.0-7
rpm-4.1.1-71
sed-4.0.6-69
sendmail-8.12.10-7
shadow-4.0.3-182
strace-4.4.98-54
syslogd-1.4.1-418
sysvinit-2.82-362
tar-1.13.25-199
texinfo-4.8-7
timezone-2.3.2-87
unzip-5.50-244
util-linux-2.11z-91
vim-6.2-74
zlib-1.2.2-5
zlib-devel-1.2.2-5

These and only these. A build system, as I said - nothing extravagant. I have 
no chance of installing newer versions of m4 or autoconf on it - unless, of 
course, I build them myself.

I took the .spec file (for RPM) of the installed version for m4, adapted it (= 
just had to change version numbers and such), then run

build m4.spec

This starts off an RPM compilation in that build system, which is separated 
from the "production".

So far so good. I tried both m4-1.4.13.tar.bz2 *and* m4-1.4.9.tar.gz and *both* 
ended with the error

+ STATUS=0
+ '[' 0 -ne 0 ']'
+ cd m4-1.4.9
++ /usr/bin/id -u
+ '[' 0 = 0 ']'
+ /bin/chown -Rhf root .
++ /usr/bin/id -u
+ '[' 0 = 0 ']'
+ /bin/chgrp -Rhf root .
+ /bin/chmod -Rf a+rX,g-w,o-w .
+ exit 0
Executing(%build): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.44219
+ umask 022
+ cd /usr/src/packages/BUILD
+ cd m4-1.4.9
+ regex=--without-included-regex
+ test /usr/lib/libc.so -ef /lib/libc.so.5
+ AUTOMAKE_DIR=/usr/share/automake
+ '[' -d /usr/share/automake ']'
+ AUTOMAKE_DIR='/usr/share/automake*'
+ '[' -d /usr/share/automake-1.9 ']'
+ for d in .
+ for f in config.sub config.guess
+ test -f ./config.sub -a '!' ./config.sub -ef 
/usr/share/automake-1.9/config.sub
+ cp -f /usr/share/automake-1.9/config.sub ./config.sub
+ test -d . -a '!' -f ./depcomp -a -f /usr/share/automake-1.9/depcomp
+ test -f ./missing -a '!' ./missing -ef /usr/share/automake-1.9/missing
+ cp -f /usr/share/automake-1.9/missing ./missing
+ for f in config.sub config.guess
+ test -f ./config.guess -a '!' ./config.guess -ef 
/usr/share/automake-1.9/config.guess
+ cp -f /usr/share/automake-1.9/config.guess ./config.guess
+ test -d . -a '!' -f ./depcomp -a -f /usr/share/automake-1.9/depcomp
+ test -f ./missing -a '!' ./missing -ef /usr/share/automake-1.9/missing
+ cp -f /usr/share/automake-1.9/missing ./missing
+ for f in ltconfig ltmain.sh
+ test -f ./ltconfig
+ for f in ltconfig ltmain.sh
+ test -f ./ltmain.sh
+ autoreconf --force --install
configure.ac:20: error: Autoconf version 2.60 or higher is required
configure.ac:20: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 63
aclocal: autom4te failed with exit status: 63
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 63
error: Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.44219 (%build)

I did *not* take any "bleeding edge" (i.e. CVS, or whatever) version. I used 
"plain old" stable versions - and they bring this error...

It is clear that line 20 of configure.ac of m4 1.4.{9,13} will say: "Autoconf 
version 2.60 or higher is required". Indeed, that line has:

AC_PREREQ([2.60])

That pretty much says it all. If you have autoconf-2.59-79, like me, you lose. 
2.59 is clearly less that 2.60. But then, when I try to install autoconf 2.60, 
it tells me it needs an upgraded m4...

This is m4-1.4.9, or m4-1.4.13 - they bring both the same error. And, according 
to what you said, they should not. That qualifies for "bug" to me. 

PS. I can send you a 75 MB tar.bzip2 archive of my build system, if you want to 
try the m4 1.4.{9,13} configure script in it yourself. ;-)

-- 
Regards

Chris Karakas
http://www.karakas-online.de