Re: autoreconf fails when LT_INIT and AC_SUBST are both present in configure.ac

[Christian Egli]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> writes:

> * Ilker R Capoglu wrote on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 06:54:48PM CET:
>> When I have both LT_INIT and AC_SUBST macros inside my
>> "configure.ac", autoreconf fails:
>> $ autoreconf -vif
>> autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
>> autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
>> autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I m4
>> Use of uninitialized value $msg in concatenation (.) or string at
>> /usr/bin/autom4te line 1038.
>
> This is very suspicious, more so since 2.64 has a comment in that line.
> Does Ubuntu have local patches in its Autoconf tree not in upstream?

The diffs can be found at
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/autoconf/autoconf_2.64-1ubuntu1.diff.gz.
There seems to be a packaging bug in that the diff contains itself, but
aside from that the changes seem pretty harmles. In particular the diff
contains no mentioning of the string '$msg', so I don't know if it is
really the cause of above error. Below are the relevant excerpts from
the diff.

Thanks
Christian

--- autoconf-2.64.orig/lib/Autom4te/C4che.pm
+++ autoconf-2.64/lib/Autom4te/C4che.pm
@@ -37,6 +37,8 @@
 use Carp;
 use strict;
 
+my $VERSION = 'Mon Jul 27 20:42:01 PDT 2009';
+
 =over 4
 
 =item @request
@@ -182,7 +184,7 @@
   $file->seek (0, 0);
   $file->truncate (0);
   print $file
-    "# This file was generated.\n",
+    "# This file was generated by Autom4te $VERSION.\n",
     "# It contains the lists of macros which have been traced.\n",
     "# It can be safely removed.\n",
     "\n",
@@ -196,6 +198,16 @@
 
 =cut
 
+#
+# GOOD_VERSION ($FILE)
+sub good_version ($$)
+{
+  my ($self, $file) = @_;
+  my ($line) = $file->getline;
+
+  return defined ($line) && scalar ($line =~ / $VERSION.$/);
+}
+
 # LOAD ($FILE)
 # ------------
 sub load ($$)
--- autoconf-2.64.orig/bin/autom4te.in
+++ autoconf-2.64/bin/autom4te.in
@@ -545,13 +545,21 @@
   # stdout is to be handled by hand :(.  Don't use fdopen as it means
   # we will close STDOUT, which we already do in END.
   my $out = new Autom4te::XFile;
-  if ($output eq '-')
+  my $atomic_replace;
+  if ($output eq '-' || (-e $output && ! -f $output))
     {
       $out->open (">$output");
+      $atomic_replace = 0;
     }
   else
     {
-      $out->open($output, O_CREAT | O_WRONLY | O_TRUNC, oct ($mode));
+      $out->open("$output.tmp", O_CREAT | O_WRONLY | O_TRUNC, oct ($mode));
+      if ($out) {
+        $atomic_replace = 1;
+      } else {
+        $out->open($output, O_CREAT | O_WRONLY | O_TRUNC, oct ($mode));
+        $atomic_replace = 0;
+      }
     }
   fatal "cannot create $output: $!"
     unless $out;
@@ -590,6 +598,11 @@
 
   $out->close();
 
+  if ($atomic_replace && !rename("$output.tmp", "$output")) {
+    move ("${output}.tmp", "$output")
+      or fatal "cannot rename ${output}.tmp as $output: $!";
+  }
+
   # If no forbidden words, we're done.
   return
     if ! %prohibited;
@@ -987,7 +1000,8 @@
 # If autom4te is younger, then some structures such as C4che might
 # have changed, which would corrupt its processing.
 Autom4te::C4che->load ($icache_file)
-  if -f $icache && mtime ($icache) > mtime ($0);
+  if -f $icache && mtime ($icache) > mtime ($0)
+                && Autom4te::C4che->good_version ($icache_file);
 
 # Add the new trace requests.
 my $req = Autom4te::C4che->request ('input' => address@hidden,
--- autoconf-2.64.orig/bin/autoreconf.in
+++ autoconf-2.64/bin/autoreconf.in
@@ -125,6 +125,8 @@
 my $aclocal_supports_force = 0;
 # Does automake support --force-missing?
 my $automake_supports_force_missing = 0;
+# Does libtoolize support --install?
+my $libtoolize_supports_install = 0;
 
 my @prepend_include;
 my @include;
@@ -185,6 +187,7 @@
 
   $aclocal_supports_force = `$aclocal --help 2>/dev/null` =~ /--force/;
   $automake_supports_force_missing = `$automake --help 2>/dev/null` =~ 
/--force-missing/;
+  $libtoolize_supports_install = `$libtoolize --help` =~ /--install/;
 
   # Dispatch autoreconf's option to the tools.
   # --include;
@@ -199,8 +202,9 @@
     {
       $automake   .= ' --add-missing';
       $automake   .= ' --copy' unless $symlink;
-      $libtoolize .= ' --copy' unless $symlink;
+      $libtoolize .= ' --install' if $libtoolize_supports_install;
     }
+  $libtoolize .= ' --copy' unless $symlink;
   # --force;
   if ($force)
     {
@@ -528,7 +532,7 @@
     {
       verb "$configure_ac: not using Libtool";
     }
-  elsif ($install)
+  elsif ($install || $libtoolize_supports_install)
     {
       if ($uses_libltdl)
        {