Subject: bug#3982: Emacs 23.1 configure/Makefile: MAKEINFO=no inconsistent with test for $(MAKEINFO)=off

From: Glenn Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:32:29 -0400

Helmut Steeb wrote:

> for http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-23.1.tar.gz
> on KUbuntu 6.06, after running configure, I got a Makefile with
>
>   MAKEINFO=no

That's what you should get if you don't have makeinfo and don't pass
the configure option --without-makeinfo.

> (which seems to originate from configure line 5319), but all the tests
> in the Makefile compare to "off", like
>
>   test "$(MAKEINFO)" = "off";

Yes, because "off" is used to indicate that you've explicitly disabled
the need for makeinfo, rather than it just being missing.

> Therefore "make install" failed with
>
>   makeinfo is missing - cannot build manuals

As you can see from the context of this line in the Makefile, "off"
and "no" have different meanings.

> ==> either configure should create "Makefile=off",
>     or the Makefile tests should check for "no".

No, you should pass the configure option --without-makeinfo.

There is a real issue here though, and it is that the top-level
Makefile does not check whether or not it needs to rebuild any manuals
before checking the value of MAKEINFO. (The manuals are pre-built in
the tarball, specifically so that you don't need makeinfo to install a
released version of Emacs.) This only shows up when doing `make install'.