Re: Autoconf/Automake versions needed to build make from CVS

[J. Grant]

on the 28/02/04 22:31, Paul D. Smith wrote:
> Actually locally I'm building now with autoconf 2.59, automake 1.8.2,
> and gettext 0.14.1.
>
> There was a big hurdle to get over to get to automake 2.5x but since
> then the releases have been easy.
>
> I do this because there are fixes to autoconf and automake and gettext
> that I want to take advantage of when I build my package for release.
> Remember that these tools are only needed if you want to build from CVS;
> they're not necessary if you want to build a released version.
>
> I build autoconf, automake, and gettext myself and install them in a
> personal directory that I use just for GNU make; I don't try to upgrade
> my system versions of these tools.  Personally I use stow to keep
> multiple versions available, but that's not really necessary for others
> since once I make a release that depends on a given version I won't go
> back.

Good point. This sounds like the best workaround the upgrade problems.

> As for checking in configure etc., that's not something I want to do.
> First, it's just not right to check in products of the build.  Second,
> I'm involved in the FVWM project as well and we had no _END_ of troubles
> when we were checking in these files: everyone would have different
> local versions of autoconf etc. and so those files would constantly
> being committed with changes that moved them back and forth in all kinds
> of silly ways.  We stopped doing that and life has been much happier
> since.

I tried to get it working, but it takes too much time build everything
locally to test with the latest release of autoconf/automake/gettext

I got the following binaries and installed into they default locations.
 I realise this is not msys development list, I'm just trying to show
that I have been trying to get it to work :)

http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/msys-autoconf-2.59.tar.bz2?download
http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/msys-automake-1.8.2.tar.bz2?download
http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/gettext-0.11.5-2003.02.01-1.exe?download


I was reading one of the autoconf/automake online guides:
http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/autobook/autobook_43.html#SEC43

They talk about having a preparation/boostrap script.  I could not spot
one in the CVS.  Would it be possible to add one please?  I'm not really
sure what commands to call and in which order.

I looked at mICQ "prepare":

#!/bin/sh -e

aclocal-1.7 -I m4 && \
(autoheader || autoheader-2.50) && \
automake-1.7 -ac && \
(autoconf || autoconf-2.50) && \
echo "Maintainer scripts ran fine." || \
echo "Maintainer scripts failed."


In MSYS I get this,
$ aclocal
/usr/share/aclocal/autoopts.m4:22: warning: underquoted definition of
AG_PATH_AUTOOPTS
  run info '(automake)Extending aclocal'
  or see
http://sources.redhat.com/automake/automake.html#Extending%20aclocal
aclocal: configure.in: 36: macro `AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION' not found in
library
aclocal: configure.in: 37: macro `AM_GNU_GETTEXT' not found in library


Any ideas about the cause of this problem?  (I will ask for help on
mingw-msys list otherwise)

I wonder if you would consider making "developer snapshots"?  (As
available by other projects, binutils, micq etc.)  Then I could no-doubt
make use of those pre-generated scripts.

I can appreciate that using the latest autoconf/automake is very useful
for developers.  Would you consider limiting adoption of the latest
versions to between say 6 months releases to avoid the need for
constant upgrades every few months?

Kind regards

JG