Re: Patch to check for required programs when building from source checkout

[Ed Avis]

Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net> writes:

>>A few tools are required to build coreutils from a git checkout, but
>>not checked in a friendly way.

>The newer automake-1.10a is actually required.

Ah, ok, it could do with a comment because at first it appears that 1.10.1 
should be newer than 1.10a.

[checks for autopoint, aclocal, and makeinfo]

>I like the idea of automating these checks, but can't use those changes
>as-is, since bootstrap is actually used more generally (it's home is in
>gnulib/build-aux/)

If you can't change the bootstrap script, then maybe include it as 
bootstrap.vanilla and then bootstrap is a small script that checks for the 
extra tools and then runs bootstrap.vanilla.

>Besides, this is the purpose of the README-hacking file.

Yes, well, guilty as charged I admit ;-p.  But it is nicer to have a more user-
friendly build process (failing earlier rather than later).  I am sure that the 
inclusion of a friendly 'configure' script has helped the popularity of GNU 
programs through the years, and now that git and other DVCSes are replacing 
tarballs as the normal means of getting source code, it would be good to 
preserve that property.

>>-for file in $gnulib_files; do
>>-  symlink_to_dir "$GNULIB_SRCDIR" $file || exit
>>-done
>>+if test "x$gnulib_files" != x; then
>>+  for file in $gnulib_files; do
>>+    symlink_to_dir "$GNULIB_SRCDIR" $file || exit
>>+  done
>>+fi
> 
>What's the above for?
>When would $gnulib_files be empty?

It got empty when one of the dependencies above was missing, I don't remember 
which one.  If it is empty, then 'for file in ;do' is a shell syntax error.

>gperf should not be required when building from a tarball,
>so its absence shouldn't make configure fail.

OK, that's another thing better checked in the bootstrap script.

-- 
Ed Avis <address@hidden>