[R-pkg-team] Bug#978891: r-cran-ncdf4: ftbfs with autoconf 2.70

[Andreas Tille]

Control: tags -1 help

Hi,

I need to admit that from my naive perspective this is a bug in
autoconf.  In the log that is provided in the bug report[1] you can see
this here:

   dh_autoreconf -O--buildsystem=R
configure.ac:44: warning: AC_OUTPUT should be used without arguments.
configure.ac:44: You should run autoupdate.
configure.ac:44: warning: AC_OUTPUT should be used without arguments.
configure.ac:44: You should run autoupdate.
   debian/rules override_dh_auto_configure
make[1]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>'
cd tools && ./regenerate
rm: cannot remove '../Makefile': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove '../src/Makevars': No such file or directory
configure.ac:44: warning: AC_OUTPUT should be used without arguments.
configure.ac:44: You should run autoupdate.
configure.ac:44: warning: AC_OUTPUT should be used without arguments.
configure.ac:44: You should run autoupdate.


This results later in:


** using staged installation
configure.ac: starting
./configure: line 1764: syntax error near unexpected token `;;'
./configure: line 1764: ` as_dir=./ ;;'
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘ncdf4’



I checked the resulting configure file and the part in question looks like:


echo "configure.ac: starting"

 as_dir=./ ;;
    */) ;;
    *) as_dir=$as_dir/ ;;
  esac
    for ac_exec_ext in '' $ac_executable_extensions; do
  if as_fn_executable_p "$as_dir$ac_word$ac_exec_ext"; then
    ac_cv_prog_HAS_NC_CONFIG="yes"
    printf "%s\n" "$as_me:${as_lineno-$LINENO}: found $as_dir$ac_word$ac_exec_ext" >&5
    break 2
  fi
done


It looks like a case statement intended but not injected by autoconf.  I
have no idea how this can be influenced by some configure.ac statement.

Kind regards

       Andreas.

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/978891

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