Re: new snapshot available: autoconf-2.72c

Hello,

Regarding EGREP, although I agree in principle this can be solved by using
AS_CASE, I'd argue that the component actually required AC_PROG_EGREP. In
principle, that should be enough, and requesting the user to know that
internally there may be some need for "_AC_PROG_EGREP_TRADITIONAL" that it
can't require for, which implies that using AS_CASE is mandatory, seems
excessive.

For reference, there was a discussion about this here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2022-11/msg00129.html

Fred

On Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 12:22 PM Richard Purdie <
[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, 2023-03-28 at 09:18 +0100, Richard Purdie wrote:
> > On Tue, 2023-03-28 at 08:44 +0100, Richard Purdie wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2023-03-27 at 08:38 -0700, Jim Meyering wrote:
> > > > We're overdue for a new release, so here's a snapshot in preparation
> > > > for that, which I want to call 2.73 (skipping 2.72).  There has never
> > > > been an autoconf-2.72 release, yet `git describe` now prints 2.72c
> and
> > > > has been printing strings like v2.72a-92-g8db00aa8 for years.
> > > >
> > > > If you maintain a package that uses autoconf and can make a release
> soon,
> > > > please install this and use it to bootstrap its configs.  We'd love
> to
> > > > expose any issues before we make the release.  I've already done that
> > > > with grep-3.10, so far without incident.
> > >
> > > I work on Yocto Project which cross compiles Linux systems from
> > > sources. We run autoreconf against most things.
> > >
> > > I tried the 2.72c tarball and found three things which failed.
> > >
> > > libarchive 3.6.2 at configure time:
> > >
> > > > checking for int16_t... no
> > > > checking for uint16_t... no
> > > > checking for uint8_t... no
> > > > checking for gcc  options needed to detect all undeclared
> functions... cannot detect
> > > > configure: error: in
> '/media/build/poky/build/tmp/work/x86_64-linux/libarchive-native/3.6.2-r0/build':
> > > > configure: error: cannot make gcc  report undeclared builtins
> > > > See 'config.log' for more details
> > > > NOTE: The following config.log files may provide further information.
> > > > NOTE:
> /media/build/poky/build/tmp/work/x86_64-linux/libarchive-native/3.6.2-r0/build/config.log
>
> This one is caused by earlier issues in the config.log. configure.ac in
> libarchive uses:
>
> la_TYPE_UID_T
>
> which wants to use AC_EGREP_HEADER, which in turn wants to call
> $EGREP_TRADITIONAL which isn't set. That causes cascades of type issues
> eventaually causing compile errors.
>
> EGREP_TRADITIONAL does look to be set earlier in the configure script
> but is probably getting unset again. It may be related to:
>
>
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/autoconf.git/commit/?id=34427e07bc9a619704816f4c333a225d9a28da15
>
> I'm out my depth at this point.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
>
>