Re: Version 2.5_rc1 m4 message

[Joel E. Denny]

On Sun, 15 May 2011, Tys Lefering wrote:

> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 2:26 AM, Joel E. Denny  wrote:
> > Thanks.  I'm not sure why m4 is being rejected in those cases.  Do you
> > know if bison 2.4.3 has the same trouble?
> No.
> 
> Using bison-2.4.3 from GNU and same spec file (only "Version:" changed)
> 
> https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=home%3Atwlevo%3Abison243
> 
> They are all "succeeded" building oke.

That means the culprit must be the updates to m4/m4.m4 we inherited from 
autoconf recently.  Here is a thread that discusses why the checks became 
stricter:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2011-02/msg00026.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2011-03/msg00009.html

I haven't yet determined whether the m4 bugs that are being avoided could 
affect bison, but it's probably safest to assume they could.

Running ./configure M4=/your/m4 will allow /your/m4 to be used regardless 
of what m4 it is, so this should give distros a way out if they don't want 
to upgrade m4 and don't mind risking the bugs.

> Can I do anything more for you?
> Thanks.

No, thanks very much for your help.  It's good to be aware of these 
issues.