Re: curl's XC_AMEND_DISTCLEAN (Seeking contractor for a regression bug fix)

On 2.3.2023 17.12, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> 
> On Thursday 2023-03-02 09:56, Ilmari Lauhakangas wrote:
>> last year I reported a regression in automake:
>> https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=59288
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, automake only runs during `autoreconf`,
> but not during ./configure. So this looks less like an automake bug.
> 
> I also notice:
>   - big makefile with ./configure (as in the report)
>   - normal-sized makefile when I run ./config.status
> 
> So configure does more than config.status, as evidenced from stdout:
> 
> root@a4:~/curl# ./config.status
> config.status: creating Makefile
> ...
> config.status: creating packages/vms/Makefile
> config.status: creating curl-config
> config.status: creating libcurl.pc
> config.status: creating lib/curl_config.h
> config.status: lib/curl_config.h is unchanged
> config.status: executing depfiles commands
> config.status: executing libtool commands
> root@a4:~/curl#
> 
> # ./configure
> ...
> config.status: creating packages/vms/Makefile
> config.status: creating curl-config
> config.status: creating libcurl.pc
> config.status: creating lib/curl_config.h
> config.status: lib/curl_config.h is unchanged
> config.status: executing depfiles commands
> config.status: executing libtool commands
> configure: amending lib/Makefile
> configure: amending src/Makefile
> configure: amending tests/unit/Makefile
> configure: amending tests/server/Makefile
> configure: amending tests/libtest/Makefile
> configure: amending docs/examples/Makefile
> configure: Configured to build curl/libcurl:
> 
> One will find that there is a file m4/xc-am-iface.m4 and a m4 macro
> "XC_AMEND_DISTCLEAN". Whatever this is - the git log and the macro comment are
> not useful:
> 
> dnl This macro performs shell code embedding into
> dnl configure script in order to modify distclean
> dnl and maintainer-clean targets of makefiles which
> dnl are located in given list of subdirs.
> 
> but whatever it does, it causes the 682x duplication you see.
> So it's a curl problem. Here's a patch.
> 
> 
>  From 74fa25bb5817f38c36c71820731eede6bc3be311 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Jan Engelhardt <[email protected]>
> Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2023 16:08:22 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH] build: ditch the use of XC_AMEND_DISTCLEAN
> 
> This messes up the distclean targets in automake 1.16.
> It's unclear what XC_AMEND_DISTCLEAN is supposed to fix
> in the first place, all the more reason to remove it.
> ---
>   configure.ac | 2 --
>   1 file changed, 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
> index 276c78474..988183d5d 100644
> --- a/configure.ac
> +++ b/configure.ac
> @@ -4665,8 +4665,6 @@ AC_OUTPUT
>   
>   CURL_GENERATE_CONFIGUREHELP_PM
>   
> -XC_AMEND_DISTCLEAN([lib src tests/unit tests/server tests/libtest docs/examples])
> -
>   AC_MSG_NOTICE([Configured to build curl/libcurl:
>   
>     Host setup:       ${host}

That's amazing! I verify that your change fixes the issue for me, 
testing with curl configure after 'autoreconf -fi'.

Would you like to submit it to curl upstream?

As I started this with a contracting proposal, let me know if you have 
any requests, like a donation target or something.

Regards,
Ilmari Lauhakangas