Re: issue running automake on GDB source files to generate Makefile.in and config.in

On 2021-03-10 4:14 p.m., Zied Guermazi wrote:
> hi,
> 
> to generate Makefile.in and config.in for gdb I am calling aclocal and then automake
> 
> when runnig automake in the binutils-gdb and gdb folders, on the head of the master branch, I am getting following error
> 
> "configure.ac: error: no proper invocation of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE was found.
> configure.ac: You should verify that configure.ac invokes AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE,
> configure.ac: that aclocal.m4 is present in the top-level directory,
> configure.ac: and that aclocal.m4 was recently regenerated (using aclocal)
> automake: error: no 'Makefile.am' found for any configure output"
> 
> I am using automake (GNU automake) 1.16.1. the same was tried with automake (GNU automake) 1.15.1
> 
> please advise on how to generate Makefile.in and config.in files from configure.ac (and gdbsupport/common.m4) file

What I do is:

1. build autoconf/automake with the right versions from source, install
   them in a prefix of their own (e.g. /opt/autostuff) and add it to my
   PATH when I want to use them.  This is because versions distributed by
   distros are sometimes patched and produce a different output.
2. in either gdb/, gdbserver/ or gdbsupport/ (and not in the top-level),
   run `autoreconf -vf`.  This takes care of calling the right autotools
   under the hood, which I don't know much about.  It calls automake if
   there is a Makefile.am (like in gdbsupport) and doesn't if there
   isn't (like in gdb) - at least that's what I understand.

> is there a well configured build server I can use to automatically generate those files?

No, unfortunately.  But it shouldn't be too difficult to get it working
in your local environment following the steps above.  This process is
not too obvious, and should probably be documented in the wiki, if it
isn't already.

Simon