[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#933628: Trouble with autoconf (Was: Bug#933628: aevol FTCBFS: broken, oudated, embedded copy of AX_BOOST_BASE)

[Andreas Tille]

On Thu, Aug 01, 2019 at 12:17:12PM +0200, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 01, 2019 at 11:14:05AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > I have removed m4/ax_boost* in Git[1].  Unfortunately this leaded to
> > some configure errors.  I was able to work around
> > 
> >   1. error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR
> > 
> >        by adding
> > 
> >      m4_pattern_allow([AC_MSG_ERROR])
> > 
> >        despite I'm quite sceptical about this error.  A websearch
> >        uncovers several instances of this error with no pattern
> >        that really applied here.  No idea whether there is a better
> >        fix.
> 
> AC_MSG_ERROR was used in an argument of AX_BOOST_BASE. Could it possibly
> be that AX_BOOST_BASE wasn't expanded and that this is a consequence?
> I.e. red herring.

To my perception 90% of autoconf messages are res herrings - so that
would not be something that is astonishing me. :-(
 
> >   2. AX_BOOST_BASE([1.55],...) created syntax error in configure script
> > 
> >      Thus I simply removed all arguments since I assumed that no actual
> >      version needs to be really checked since we have modern boost in
> >      all relevant releases.  Unfortunately this endedt up in:
> 
> Could it be that you miss a build dependency on autoconf-archive here?

Yep - that works.
 
> I attempted a cross build. It succeeded after adding autoconf-archive to
> Build-Depends and adding m4/ax_boost_base.m4 (but not the others) to
> debian/clean.

I have removed also the others and the build works now.

Thanks for the hint to autoconf-archive

    Andreas.

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