autoconf (configure) clobbers conftest.py - fix?

Dima Pasechnik <[email protected]> Tue, 21 Jan 2025 15:53:00 -0600

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.sysutils.autoconf.general
Message-ID	<Z5AXPFdg_JVq2z-Q@hilbert>

Hello,

pytest, a popular Python testing tool/framework, uses files named
conftest.py for its configuration. OTOH many autoconf macros run
"rm -f conftest*", clobbering conftest.py in the directory where
./configure lives. In our case at least, it's the topmost directory.

I tried naive things such as setting up a trap to restore conftest.py
from a backup copy on EXIT (and other signals) in configure.ac, using AC_CONFIG_FILES to
restore it from a backup copy, but apparently there are more "rm -f conftest*"
which still succeed to delete it.

How this be helped, short of running ./configure in a wrapper which
would restore the file after ./configure is run?

Thanks,
Dima

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