Re: Autoconf caches AC_INIT arguments

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Wed, 23 May 2012, Stefano Lattarini wrote:

> Hi Bob.
>
> On 05/23/2012 02:17 AM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> > The forthcoming Automake release is about to break the means I have been
> > using to automatically version my package (without manually editing
> > configure.ac) for the past 9 years.
> I smell a misunderstanding here: Automake 1.12.1 will only start *warning*
> about such an usage, but will still work with it (there are checks in the
> Automake test suite that should verify this is indeed the case).  The actual
> removal of support for that usage will only take place in Automake 1.13, which
> I don't see appearing if not several several months from now (i.e,, until
> there is some major feature or non trivial bug-fix that justifies a new major
> release).

That is good to know.  Then it is not an emergency for me.

This issue feels like an Autoconf bug to me since AC_INIT is 
presumably an Autoconf macro, but it includes overtones of an Automake 
weakness since the procedure I used is clearly documented in the 
Automake manual and the 'missing' script is being used to invoke 
autoconf under Automake control.

Testing this morning showed that '../missing autoconf --force' does 
cause the configure script to be updated.  I did not have time to 
figure out how to extend the AUTOCONF definition (of the form 
'../missing autoconf') that configure is creating (and caching).
Since config.status --recheck was previously re-run anyway, using 
--force only adds a couple of extra seconds to the re-configuration 
process.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/