GNU bug report logs - #10791
aclocal fails if /usr/share/aclocal does not exist

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From: Tim Retout <diocles <at> debian.org>
To: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 10791 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#10791: aclocal fails if /usr/share/aclocal does not exist
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:32:03 +0000

Hi Stefano!

On 21 February 2012 22:35, Stefano Lattarini
<stefano.lattarini <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/11/2012 08:19 PM, Tim Retout wrote:
>> Since automake 1.11.2, aclocal no longer succeeds if the system acdir
>> does not exist.  This causes Debian's 'make' package (and possibly
>> others?) to FTBFS under cowbuilder, because it calls autoreconf when
>> /usr/share/aclocal is not present.
>>
> But the automake build system creates /usr/share/aclocal at "make install"
> time...  So, how comes that this "cowbuilder" provides an aclocal program
> without an /usr/share/aclocal directory?

Well, /usr/share/aclocal-1.11 exists.  But /usr/share/aclocal does
not, because there are no third-party m4 files required at the time
that GNU Make was being compiled.

Cowbuilder is a minimal chroot environment designed to ensure clean
builds - it is very common for packages to be built in this type of
environment, and it worked all the way up to and including automake
1.11.1.

Should automake installations create an empty /usr/share/aclocal
directory?  That might be all that's needed to fix this.  I notice
that m4/Makefile.am has a relatively new comment about creating
$(system_acdir)... the Debian packaging probably hasn't been updated
to reflect this.

So, I think I've answered my own question - we can fix this in the
packaging.  :)  I don't *think* multiple automake versions on the same
system owning /usr/share/aclocal will be a problem...

Kind regards,

-- 
Tim Retout <diocles <at> debian.org>

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