Re: autoreconf vs. libtoolize when upgrading to libtool 2.2

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Scott, and sorry for the delay,

* Scott James Remnant wrote on Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 11:21:25AM CEST:
> 
> We've switched the default version of Libtool in our development version
> to 2.2, and are doing such migrations as are necessary to permit this.

Great.  How come you're not going straight for 2.2.4?

> In the progress, we've encountered an interesting difference between the
> behaviour of autoreconf and libtoolize that leaves you with a broken
> build system and no warning.

> This means if you upgrade libtool, and run "autoreconf", you end up with
> the old 1.5 ltmain.sh and the newer 2.2 autoconf macros.  This obviously
> breaks.

Yep.  :-/

Note that it matters for libtoolize whether AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR is set
(it will not install the *.m4 files without it).

> I humbly suggest the following fixes:
> 
>  - libtoolize should not install files unless --install is given

What should libtoolize then do if --install is not given, and it's run
on the tree for the first time?

>  - but should update any that are already installed
> 
>  - thus, if libtoolize supports --install, autoreconf may freely call
>    libtoolize when not given, and add the argument when given.

Of course autoreconf would have to check for libtoolize being newer than
2.2.4 or so.

> Assuming both maintainer groups are ok with this, I'm happy to cook up
> some patches.  I'm also happy to hear alternate suggestions?

I don't see how we get out of it easily without breaking backward
compatibility.

Cheers,
Ralf