Re: Autoconf

[John Daschbach <d3h486 at wd19518 dot emsl dot pnl dot gov>]

John> [guile@hydrogen guile-core]$ autoconf 
John> configure.in:102: warning: AC_TRY_RUN called without default to
allow cross compiling

	Ignore this.

	John> configure.in:124:AC_CHECK_LIB(m, main)

	This probably means your autoconf is misinstalled.

I have tried this on two machines, both running RH 6.0, with autoconf
installed from the rpm file that comes with RH 6.0.  The results with
guile are identical.  However many tarball packages have installed
without any trouble, using the autoconf, configure approach.

If it is improperly installed, then it's a result of the rpm packager.
If it is improperly installed, why does it work without errors for
many packages, and why in fact did it work for guile until very
recently (it looks like I did a succesful build on 4 Oct)?

Isn't AC_CHECK_LIB the m4 macro?  If autoconf is installed incorrectly
how is is running all the other macros (which are located in the same
autoconf configuration files)?

How does one start to debug this problem (if they had the time)?  15
years ago it might take some time hand editing makefiles, header and C
files, but you could always get something to compile.  It's hard to
defend a tool that stops you dead on what is a pretty standard system
these days, is nearly impossible to debug, and provides such limited
error output..

[codep@wd19518 guile-core]$ autoconf
..
autoconf: Undefined macros:
configure.in:124:AC_CHECK_LIB(m, main)
configure.in:127:    AC_CHECK_LIB(nsl, gethostbyname)
configure.in:131:    AC_CHECK_LIB(socket, connect)
configure.in:138:AC_CHECK_LIB(dl,dlopen)
configure.in:143:AC_CHECK_LIB(dld,dld_link)
configure.in:258:     [AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
[codep@wd19518 guile-core]$ pushd
[codep@wd19518 autoconf]$ egrep -l AC_CHECK_LIB *
acgeneral.m4
acspecific.m4
autoconf.m4f
autoheader.m4
autoheader.m4f
[codep@wd19518 autoconf]$ pwd
/usr/share/autoconf


	John> The AC_TRY_RUN error shows up in many autoconf runs.  I'm
	John> running RedHat 6.0 with autoconf 1.3, which freshmeat indicates
	John> is the most recent.

	I assume that is a typo and you mean 2.14.  autoconf 1.3 is very, very
	old.

	Oops, sorry.  2.13 is what I'm running and what freshmeat
reports as current.  I checked the cygnus site and ftp.gnu.org and
they all have 2.13.  Is 2.14 the current CVS version?

	I'd really like to know what to do.  Thanks.

	-John