Re: autoupdate produces changes for the current ax_* macros from the archive

[dima . pasechnik]

On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 11:20:15AM -0400, Nick Bowler wrote:
> 
> On 2021-05-19, dima.pasechnik@cs.ox.ac.uk <dima.pasechnik@cs.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> > what is the procedure for fixing autoconf-2.71-incompatible macros in
> > the autoconf archive?
> [...]
> > For instance, autoupdate provides replacements for
> > AC_WARNING in ax_compare_version.m4 from
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf-archive/ax_compare_version.html
> 
> AC_WARNING has not been removed.

The question remains, would fixes such as replacing deprecated features with
what autoupdate suggests be acceptable/encouraged?

> 
> The only change is now you get a warning (with -Wobsolete) and autoupdate
> will suggest to change it.  This macro has been deprecated[1] since
> Autoconf 2.62 (ca. 2008).
> 
> Is there some problem with the replacement suggested by autoupdate?
> 
> > Also, there are few weird replacements for aliases generated, e.g.
> > -AU_ALIAS([CHECK_SSL], [AX_CHECK_OPENSSL])
> > +AU_ALIAS([AX_CHECK_OPENSSL], [AX_CHECK_OPENSSL])
> > in ax_check_openssl.m4
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf-archive/ax_check_openssl.html
> 
> This is a known problem with autoupdate[2].  It doesn't actually
> understand m4 syntax so it often runs into problems similar this one.
> 
> As a workaround, you can tweak the quoting to avoid such counterproductive
> suggestions in the future; for example:
> 
>   AU_ALIAS([CHECK_][OPENSSL], [AX_CHECK_OPENSSL])

I see, so these are false positives, thanks.

Thanks
Dima


> 
> [1] 
> https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.62/autoconf.html#index-AC_005fWARNING-1271
> [2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2021-01/msg00023.html