Re: autoconf/automake versions needed for autoreconf

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 10:42 AM Jeff Johnston <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Joel,
>
> This is a long-standing problem.  I personally am not happy with the
> autotools project.  They don't seem to regard backwards-compatibility
> as important.  For example, they removed the cygnus
> support but didn't provide any compatibility options or instructions for
> conversion.  My belief is that autotools should have dragged along old
> support and recognized when a project has an old autotools version number.
> We also have kludges in place because
> they previously didn't support testing the compiler without building the
> executable.  These break with newer autotools.
>

I know. I have tried to avoid even having to regenerate when working
on newlib.


>
> I have autoconf 2.68 and automake 1.11.6 installed on my system for
> generation.  For a while now, I have used a script that regenerates the
> configuration files
> and don't use autoreconf.  If it is touching files you didn't intend it to,
> then you will have to generate the files you want individually like I do.
> I think that Corinna has used 2.69 in the past successfully, but I don't
> care for all the errors thrown out.  So basically, newlib is locked
> down with regards to maximum autotools release.  AFAIK, there isn't
> anything in the newer releases that gives us anything or fixes any issues
> we haven't
> already got around.
>

I don't mind installing old versions of tools. Would you mind privately
sending me your script? I'm adding a directory so there is some
regeneration needed.


>
> If someone has time and wants to detangle the mess, a patch would be
> welcome, but I personally don't have the time and I don't
> trust autotools not to introduce further backward-compatibility issues that
> we may be forever chasing or be forced to freeze the level
> of autotools used yet again.
>

I'm not the autotools expert you're looking for. :)

Unfortunately, I'm not sure anyone is. :(

--joel

>
> -- Jeff J.
>
> On Tue, Jul 30, 2019 at 7:26 PM Joel Sherrill <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > I know I have asked this multiple times before. :(
> >
> > I need to bootstrap to turn on libm/fenv. I am doing "autoreconf -fvi"
> from
> > libm. This looks like it might have worked but I get lots of scary output
> > using autoconf 2.69:
> >
> > onfigure.in:11: error: support for Cygnus-style trees has been removed
> > Makefile.am:3: error: support for Cygnus-style trees has been removed
> > Makefile.am:5: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or
> > '*_CPPFLAGS')
> > Makefile.am: installing './INSTALL'
> > Makefile.am: error: required file './NEWS' not found
> > Makefile.am: error: required file './README' not found
> > Makefile.am: error: required file './AUTHORS' not found
> > Makefile.am: error: required file './ChangeLog' not found
> > Makefile.am: installing './COPYING' using GNU General Public License v3
> > file
> > Makefile.am:     Consider adding the COPYING file to the version control
> > system
> > Makefile.am:     for your code, to avoid questions about which license
> your
> > project uses
> > automake: warning: autoconf input should be named 'configure.ac', not
> > 'configure
> >
> > It also replaced the top level config.guess and config.sub.
> >
> > Is that the right command to bootstrap and what versions of autoconf and
> > automake should I be using?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > --joel
> >
>