Re: Build system support for stock FreeBSD autoconf ports

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Roman Neuhauser wrote:

# sniper@iki.fi / 2005-03-29 15:24:07 +0300:

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Roman Neuhauser wrote:

# sniper@iki.fi / 2005-03-29 11:11:27 +0300:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005, Jon Parise wrote:

The attached patch allows PHP's build system to recognize FreeBSD's "versioned" autoconf ports without the need for system-level symlinks or similar aliasing. It uses 'shtool path' to (attempt to) locate the appropriate autoconf / autoheader executable.

I added such patch once but Sebastian got some problems with it so it was reverted. And I don't want to add this patch either unless there is very good reason to do so.

It would be interesting to know what the problems were so that they could be ironed out.

    He had the problems with gentoo and it's autoconf wrapper crap.

And finally: Common users should NEVER EVER run buildconf.

But why make hacking PHP harder?

    And how is it hard atm to run './buildconf' ??
    If you have autoconf (any version above 2.13 works) installed,
    there are no problems.

I have autoconf-2.13, 2.53, 2.59, automake-1.4.5, 1.5, 1.9.4, libtool-1.3.5, 1.5.10. I have no executable named autoconf, automake, or libtool, instead, there are autoconf213, autoconf253, etc.

    If there are no autoconf/autoheader executables, that's no way
    any PHP problem.

Without symlinking or installing the desired versions somewhere and munging PATH, running ./buildconf is an uber-easy way to be informed that I don't have the required tools.

    Life is hard sometimes.

Such schemes are quite common thanks to incompatibilities between autotools versions, e. g. Subversion's buildconf equivalent accepts the names from environment, mentioning IIRC Debian installing the tools as e. g. autoconf-213.

    If someone can provide a patch that works in every single OS
    with any possible combination of autoconf* packages installed I'll
    be happy to commit such patch. As long as nobody can provide such patch
    and PROVE it won't break things for others -> no commit.

    --Jani