Debian Bug report logs - #432941
autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Leo Moisio <leo.moisio@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:43:57 +0300

Package: autoconf
Version: 2.61-4
Severity: normal


Autoconf manual tells that:

"If you want autoreconf to pass flags that are not listed here on to
aclocal, set ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in your Makefile.am."

However, if this line is split like so:

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = \
	-I m4

Then, when running autoreconf -v, this happens:

autoreconf: running: aclocal \

And in this case, the -I m4 indeed is not in effect and the scripts are
not found.

Automake itself correctly handles this case, when make is used to
rebuild aclocal.m4, and so does autoreconf when the line is not split
like this:

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4

However, I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere that the line couldn't be
split.

The problem seems to be around lines 403-405 of /usr/bin/autoreconf
which does:

	  if (/^ACLOCAL_[A-Z_]*FLAGS\s*=\s*(.*)/)
	    {
	      $aclocal_flags = $1;
	      last;
	    }

Now I don't know why I would want to split the line, but it's not obvious from
documentation that it can't be split currently, and it's not very coherent with
other lines being splittable in Makefile.am.

Leo Moisio

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (650, 'stable'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-k7
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fi_FI.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages autoconf depends on:
ii  debianutils                   2.17       Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  m4                            1.4.8-2    a macro processing language
ii  perl                          5.8.8-7    Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 

Versions of packages autoconf recommends:
ii  automake [automaken]     1:1.10+nogfdl-1 A tool for generating GNU Standard
ii  automake1.9 [automaken]  1.9.6+nogfdl-3  A tool for generating GNU Standard

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 432941@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu>

To: bug-autoconf@gnu.org

Cc: Leo Moisio <leo.moisio@gmail.com>, 432941@bugs.debian.org, 432941-forwarded@bugs.debian.org

Subject: [Leo Moisio] Bug#432941: autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:47:02 -0700

Leo Moisio filed the following bug report against the Debian
packaging of Autoconf 2.61.  I do not think that it is a result
of any of Debian's changes to Autoconf, so I am passing it along
to the Autoconf bugs list.

It would be helpful if the CC to 432941-forwarded@bugs.debian.org
could be retained in any discussion, so that the discussion gets
logged in the Debian bug tracking system as well as the Autoconf
bug list.

-------------------- Start of forwarded message --------------------
Subject: Bug#432941: autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS
From: Leo Moisio <leo.moisio@gmail.com>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Message-ID: <20070713094357.17475.1973.reportbug@multic0rn.fitch.tky.hut.fi>
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:43:57 +0300

Autoconf manual tells that:

"If you want autoreconf to pass flags that are not listed here on to
aclocal, set ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in your Makefile.am."

However, if this line is split like so:

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = \
	-I m4

Then, when running autoreconf -v, this happens:

autoreconf: running: aclocal \

And in this case, the -I m4 indeed is not in effect and the scripts are
not found.

Automake itself correctly handles this case, when make is used to
rebuild aclocal.m4, and so does autoreconf when the line is not split
like this:

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4

However, I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere that the line couldn't be
split.

The problem seems to be around lines 403-405 of /usr/bin/autoreconf
which does:

	  if (/^ACLOCAL_[A-Z_]*FLAGS\s*=\s*(.*)/)
	    {
	      $aclocal_flags = $1;
	      last;
	    }

Now I don't know why I would want to split the line, but it's not obvious from
documentation that it can't be split currently, and it's not very coherent with
other lines being splittable in Makefile.am.

Leo Moisio
-------------------- End of forwarded message --------------------

-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org

Message #18 received at 432941@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert@CS.UCLA.EDU>

To: blp@cs.stanford.edu

Cc: bug-autoconf@gnu.org, 432941-forwarded@bugs.debian.org, Leo Moisio <leo.moisio@gmail.com>, 432941@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Leo Moisio] Bug#432941: autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:38:43 -0700

Thanks for reporting the problem.  I installed this doc fix for now.

* doc/autoconf.texi (autoreconf Invocation): Document ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS
limitation reported by Leo Moisio in
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432941>.
Index: doc/autoconf.texi
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/autoconf/autoconf/doc/autoconf.texi,v
retrieving revision 1.1162
diff -u -p -r1.1162 autoconf.texi
--- doc/autoconf.texi	26 Jun 2007 17:42:27 -0000	1.1162
+++ doc/autoconf.texi	13 Jul 2007 17:38:09 -0000
@@ -1665,6 +1665,9 @@ none,obsolete}.

 If you want @command{autoreconf} to pass flags that are not listed here
 on to @command{aclocal}, set @code{ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS} in your @file{Makefile.am}.
+Due to a limitation in the Autoconf implementation these flags currently
+must be set on a single line in @file{Makefile.am}, without any
+backslash-newlines.

 @c ========================================= Initialization and Output Files.

Message #24 received at 432941@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu>

To: Leo Moisio <leo.moisio@gmail.com>

Cc: 432941@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Leo Moisio] Bug#432941: autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:46:41 -0700

Paul Eggert <eggert@CS.UCLA.EDU> writes:

> * doc/autoconf.texi (autoreconf Invocation): Document ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS
> limitation reported by Leo Moisio in
> <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432941>.

Leo, do you consider this fix sufficient for me to close the
Debian bug?  If not, I'll set its severity to "wishlist" as I
don't think that this is really an important feature.  Let me
know what you think.
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org

Message #29 received at 432941@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Leo Moisio" <leo.moisio@gmail.com>

To: blp@cs.stanford.edu

Cc: 432941@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Leo Moisio] Bug#432941: autoconf: autoreconf can't handle multi-line assignment to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:10:36 +0300

On 7/13/07, Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Paul Eggert <eggert@CS.UCLA.EDU> writes:
>
> > * doc/autoconf.texi (autoreconf Invocation): Document ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS
> > limitation reported by Leo Moisio in
> > <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432941>.
>
> Leo, do you consider this fix sufficient for me to close the
> Debian bug?  If not, I'll set its severity to "wishlist" as I
> don't think that this is really an important feature.  Let me
> know what you think.
> --
> Ben Pfaff
> http://benpfaff.org
>

Sure, it'd been ok for me if I'd seen the thing from docs in the first
place instead of finding out the hard way :) Feel free to close it.

Leo Moisio

Message #34 received at 432941-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu>

To: 432941-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: fixed: reporter is satisfied with documentation fix

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:45:09 -0700

Closing this bug as the original reporter is satisfied with the
upstream resolution of fixing the documentation to match
Autoconf's actual behavior, as follows:

-------------------- Start of forwarded message --------------------
On 7/13/07, Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Leo, do you consider this fix sufficient for me to close the
> Debian bug?  If not, I'll set its severity to "wishlist" as I
> don't think that this is really an important feature.  Let me
> know what you think.

Sure, it'd been ok for me if I'd seen the thing from docs in the first
place instead of finding out the hard way :) Feel free to close it.
-------------------- End of forwarded message --------------------

-- 
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