Steve,
On 2004 Oct 22 , at 14.00, Rankin, SE (Stephen) wrote:
> OK, just to get something straight, I need a copy of GNU autoconf on by
> system to build m4 that is included with our software, do I? If so,
> does
> that autoconf need to have a system copy of m4 to work? It says the
> following on the GNU site for autoconf:
No, you do NOT need a copy of GNU autoconf/automake pre-installed on
your system.
And if you do have one, then the bootstrap script works hard to avoid
using it. Because if you use standard autoconf/automake to bootstrap
the system, then the bootstrap will probably fail; and if by some
chance it doesn't, then the resulting Makefile.in files will not build
our software correctly.
This is why we have a patched version of autoconf/automake in the
repository. In order to build that, there needs to be a copy of GNU m4
somewhere around. If the m4 that the bootstrap script finds is new
enough, it uses that, otherwise it builds its own.
> It would appear on rlsul0 that the /usr/local/autoconf needs the
> /usr/local/m4 to work. If I get the autoconf software source and build
> it,
> do I still need a copy of m4?
When autoconf is built it has a m4 location baked into it.
> Getting confused now, there appears to be an infinite loop!
Welcome to the joys of bootstrapping....
> And as Peter said
> before the sunfreeware m4 must be kaput.
This is looking like the most plausible explanation. I suppose it's
possible that the sunfreeware m4 was reporting itself as a version with
the right capabilities, but if it fails subsequently, then the build
could fail.
It sounds as if the best thing to do is to make sure there is NO m4 in
the path, and so let the bootstrap build its own. See my transcript of
earlier.
Norman
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Norman Gray : Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow University, UK
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/ : www.starlink.ac.uk
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