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Re: Ping autoconf maintainer (was Re: auto tools issues)


Thanks for the reply, Charles.

On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Charles Wilson wrote:
> Brian Ford wrote:
> >>$ aclocal
> >>[snip underquoted macro definition warnings]
> >>ac-wrapper: /usr/bin/autom4te-2.13 is missing or not executable.
> >>            Something is very wrong.
> >>aclocal: autom4te failed with exit status: 1
> >>
> >>Any ideas?  Thanks.
> >
> > BTW, according to the http://cygwin.com/packages search, atuom4te-2.31
> > doesn't exist in any cygwin package.  So, why is it looking for it?
>
> Short version:
> you're running the wrong aclocal.  The automake tools no longer try to
> figure out which version of themselves to use; you need to tell them.

Telling them used to be as easy as AC_REQUIRE(2.13) :-(.

> Run /usr/sbin/alternatives --set automake /usr/bin/automake-1.4
> to make automake-1.4 (and aclocal-1.4) the 'active' version on your machine.

I saw you discussing this on cygwin-apps, but I couldn't tell it had been
finalized or how to do it in practice.  Thanks for the clarification.

Was this in the release announcement or in the READMEs?  I couldn't find
it, but I may have just missed it.  I hope it was there for your user
support sake ;-).

> Long version:
> You're running aclocal from automake-1.9, which tries to invoke
> unversioned autom4te from (some) autoconf package.  There IS an
> unversioned autom4te in /usr/bin -- which is a new (linux-derived and
> not home-grown-for-cygwin) wrapper script.

Does the automake team, or the linux community have any plans to do the
same for automake that you are aware of?  If so, do you plan to
incorporate it?

> All autoconf wrapper scripts will attempt to deduce the corrent version
> of their underlying tools to run.  This is happening properly in your
> case; the autom4te script figures out that you need to use the
> autoconf-2.13 distribution.
>
> So, it tries to launch autom4te-2.13.  But that's the ONE case where the
> wrappers will bomb: because there is no autom4te in -2.13.

ln /usr/bin/true /usr/bin/autom4te-2.13 ?

> The real problem is that aclocal should not have tried to call autom4te
> in your case -- but its behavior is normal for the automake-1.9.x
> distribution because 1.9.x REQUIRES autoconf-2.5x or better.
>
> So, ensure that you are using aclocal-1.4 NOT aclocal-1.9.  See short
> version, above.

Since I have a large user community to support here, I guess I'll have
to resurrect your old wrapper script for internal use.  It is not practical
for me to require every developer here to have this specialized knowledge
and know when and how to switch back and forth.

I understand and sympathize with your motivation, but I'll miss the
automation you had working so well :-(.  Was it really that difficult to
maintain?

Thanks again for your assistance.

-- 
Brian Ford
Senior Realtime Software Engineer
VITAL - Visual Simulation Systems
FlightSafety International
the best safety device in any aircraft is a well-trained pilot...

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