bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Steve Purcell]

The latest Apple developer tools (XCode 3.2.6) provide autoconf version
2.61. Since 'configure' was removed from emacs bzr, it cannot be
regenerated on this platform without autoconf >= 2.6.5, i.e. overriding
Apple's standard autotools, which is widely deprecated.

IMHO, it should continue to be possible to build emacs without doing so,
as has always been the case.

% ./configure --with-ns
zsh: no such file or directory: ./configure
% autoreconf
configure.in:24: error: Autoconf version 2.65 or higher is required
configure.in:24: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/gm4 failed with exit status: 63
aclocal: /usr/bin/autom4te failed with exit status: 63
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 63



In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin10.6.0, NS apple-appkit-1038.35)
of 2011-03-21 on mandala.home
Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.1038
configured using `configure  '--with-ns' '--without-dbus' 'CFLAGS=-g''

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Jan Djärv]

Steve Purcell skrev 2011-03-25 14.29:
> The latest Apple developer tools (XCode 3.2.6) provide autoconf version
> 2.61. Since 'configure' was removed from emacs bzr, it cannot be
> regenerated on this platform without autoconf>= 2.6.5, i.e. overriding
> Apple's standard autotools, which is widely deprecated.

Deprecated by who?  I have had autoconf in /usr/local for years on OSX, and 
noticed no ill effects on XCode projects.
>
> IMHO, it should continue to be possible to build emacs without doing so,
> as has always been the case.

It is still the case for released versions, it is just the developer version 
that has changed.  This is more or less how other projects manage development 
versions.

	Jan D.

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Steve Purcell]

On 25 Mar 2011, at 14:26, Jan Djärv wrote:
> 
> Steve Purcell skrev 2011-03-25 14.29:
>> The latest Apple developer tools (XCode 3.2.6) provide autoconf version
>> 2.61. Since 'configure' was removed from emacs bzr, it cannot be
>> regenerated on this platform without autoconf>= 2.6.5, i.e. overriding
>> Apple's standard autotools, which is widely deprecated.
> 
> Deprecated by who?  I have had autoconf in /usr/local for years on OSX, and noticed no ill effects on XCode projects.
>> 
>> IMHO, it should continue to be possible to build emacs without doing so,
>> as has always been the case.
> 
> It is still the case for released versions, it is just the developer version that has changed.  This is more or less how other projects manage development versions.
> 
> 	Jan D.

Hi Jan,

I'm sure some other projects do the same thing. Though I appreciate the purity of not checking in the configure script, I think it is neither pragmatic nor common to do so.

The majority of software I have ever installed from source has been supplied with a pre-generated configure script, and this is independent of whether that software was a development or release version. Provided the relevant libraries are installed, almost everything will build with only gcc and a standard shell.

For reference, I'm using the Homebrew package manager (http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew), which relies on the Apple-standard autoconf. Of the ~1500 packages it currently supports, both in stable and dev versions, Emacs HEAD is now the only one which I know will fail to build due to the autoconf version.

The change appears to simplify things for the very few developers who touch configure.in at the expense of the many more casual users/developers who build Emacs from HEAD, use it and provide feedback and patches. Making the software harder to build will reduce the user base.

That's probably why most projects tend to check the configure script into VC (which is a compromise aesthetically) and it's why I still hope that a convenient method can be found to keep the configure script up to date and checked-in.

I will probably take the time to work around this issue on my own machine sooner or later, but not everybody will do so, and this is why I raised this bug.

Cheers, and many thanks for your work on Emacs.

-Steve

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Chong Yidong]

Steve Purcell <steve@sanityinc.com> writes:

> Of the ~1500 packages it currently supports, both in stable and dev
> versions, Emacs HEAD is now the only one which I know will fail to
> build due to the autoconf version.

If you change the line

AC_PREREQ(2.65)

in configure.in to your exisiting autoconf version, does Emacs build
properly?

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Glenn Morris]

Steve Purcell wrote:

> I will probably take the time to work around this issue on my own machine sooner or later, but not everybody will do so, and this is why I raised this bug.

If installing autoconf is too hard, you can use

./autogen/copy_autogen

as a workaround

(as advised by the top-level autogen.sh script, if you run it)

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Glenn Morris]

Chong Yidong wrote:

> AC_PREREQ(2.65)
>
> in configure.in to your exisiting autoconf version, does Emacs build
> properly?

I seem to recall there were bugs fixed in autoconf 2.62 that were
relevant to Emacs on some platforms. But I can't remember what the bugs
were.

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Steve Purcell]

On 25 Mar 2011, at 15:51, Chong Yidong wrote:

> Steve Purcell <steve@sanityinc.com> writes:
> 
>> Of the ~1500 packages it currently supports, both in stable and dev
>> versions, Emacs HEAD is now the only one which I know will fail to
>> build due to the autoconf version.
> 
> If you change the line
> 
> AC_PREREQ(2.65)
> 
> in configure.in to your exisiting autoconf version, does Emacs build
> properly?
> 

Nope - autoconf fails on an undefined macro.

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Andreas Schwab]

Steve Purcell <steve@sanityinc.com> writes:

> IMHO, it should continue to be possible to build emacs without doing so,
> as has always been the case.

Just use the files in autogen if you are stuck with antique software.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Steve Purcell]

On 25 Mar 2011, at 17:08, Glenn Morris wrote:
> 
> If installing autoconf is too hard, you can use
> 
> ./autogen/copy_autogen
> 
> as a workaround
> 
> (as advised by the top-level autogen.sh script, if you run it)
> 

Hi Glenn,

That works, and I apologise for having failed to notice it.

It's not that installing autogen is too hard, of course -- I have an autogen, just not the very latest version, and that never mattered before since 'configure' was all I needed.

It seems like if there's an accepted case for checking in a version of the autogen'd files, then why not spare the users by sticking with the previous simpler scheme, and use the ./autogen cronjob to update the primary files directly?

I imagine the Homebrew build recipe will end up just using copy_autogen if the new scheme remains in place, and a bunch of OS X users will also get used to running ./autogen/copy_autogen every time they build.

I should stress that I'm far from a hard-core Emacs developer, and I don't fully understand the big picture of making Emacs work *everywhere*, but I hope that this at least qualifies my bug report as the feedback of an informed (and grateful) user on one reasonably popular platform.

Cheers,

-Steve

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Glenn Morris]

Steve Purcell wrote:

> I imagine the Homebrew build recipe will end up just using
> copy_autogen if the new scheme remains in place, and a bunch of OS X
> users will also get used to running ./autogen/copy_autogen every time
> they build.

How about asking Homebrew to package a recent autoconf?
I'm not familiar with their system, but maybe their Emacs package could
even require it as a dependency.

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Glenn Morris]

(I think the following off-list stuff is worth having in the bug report).


Steve Purcell wrote (on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 at 18:26 +0000):

> On 25 Mar 2011, at 18:24, Glenn Morris wrote:
> 
> > Steve Purcell wrote (on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 at 18:18 +0000):
> > 
> >> Dependencies can be specified, but autoconf won't get into Homebrew
> >> because Homebrew aims to avoid providing packages that Apple already
> >> provide, presumably in the interest of avoiding compatibility
> >> issues. That goal seems to be surprisingly possible, and there are
> >> around 1500 packages right now that don't require a newer autoconf
> >> than Apple's.
> > 
> > How many of the 1500 have you actually checked, and how many of those
> > offer the option to build from the repository as opposed to the last
> > stable release?
> 
> I haven't checked, but many recipes support the --head build option.
> 
> > Because the first one I looked at, GNU coreutils (Apple don't provide
> > coreutils?) did not even seem to offer the option to build from the
> > repo, and when I look at the repo, they do not include configure, and
> > require autoconf 2.62.
> > 
> That recipe would not, then, support the --head option.

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Steve Purcell]

On 25 Mar 2011, at 18:02, Andreas Schwab wrote:

> Steve Purcell <steve@sanityinc.com> writes:
> 
>> IMHO, it should continue to be possible to build emacs without doing so,
>> as has always been the case.
> 
> Just use the files in autogen if you are stuck with antique software.


Yes, I am sure that will happen. And I'm the first to admit that if I still lived in Debian (and was able to use a new enough distro to have the requisite autoconf version), this problem wouldn't have affected or even interested me.

But I hope I'll be forgiven for trying to point out that:

1. Emacs HEAD users on OS X will mostly use the copy_autogen script in future
2. Those people may well end up slightly confused along the way, like me (and I think I qualify as very experienced)
3. Any issues arising from that confusion or the freshness of the files in ./autogen will likely end up filed as emacs bugs

Thanks to Glenn I can now make my own build and the Homebrew build work, and I've provided what I hope is useful feedback on the changes, so I don't mind if this bug report is closed.

bug#8342: 24.0.50; Emacs HEAD cannot build with OS X standard autoconf

[Stefan Monnier]

> IMHO, it should continue to be possible to build emacs without doing so,
> as has always been the case.

It's still just as possible as before.  You just need to do:

   ./autogen/copy_autogen; make.


        Stefan