[Changed the subject to something meaningful]
Hi Reuben,
> Problem reported to me by a NetBSD user:
>
> m4/gnu-make.m4 […] has wrong assumptions:
>
> 11 # Set GNU_MAKE if we are using a recent-enough version of GNU make.
> 12
> 13 # Use --version AND trailing junk, because SGI Make doesn't
> fail on --version.
> 14
> 15 AC_DEFUN([gl_GNU_MAKE],
> 16 [
> 17 AM_CONDITIONAL([GNU_MAKE],
> 18 [${MAKE-make} --version /cannot/make/this >/dev/null 2>&1])
> 19 ])
>
> (Of course on NetBSD make --version /cannot/make/this cleanly return a
> succesfull exit status!)
'make' on NetBSD 7 worked as expected. But on NetBSD 8, indeed,
'make --version' outputs an empty line and exits successfully.
There are at least two easy fixes:
- Use --help instead of --version. NetBSD 8 'make --help' exits with code 2.
(But it may not take too long until they change it as well.)
- Actually look at the output of 'make --version'.
Proposed change:
diff --git a/m4/gnu-make.m4 b/m4/gnu-make.m4
index 1f833d9..29d6a1b 100644
--- a/m4/gnu-make.m4
+++ b/m4/gnu-make.m4
@@ -10,10 +10,8 @@
# Set GNU_MAKE if we are using a recent-enough version of GNU make.
-# Use --version AND trailing junk, because SGI Make doesn't fail on --version.
-
AC_DEFUN([gl_GNU_MAKE],
[
AM_CONDITIONAL([GNU_MAKE],
- [${MAKE-make} --version /cannot/make/this >/dev/null 2>&1])
+ [${MAKE-make} --version 2>/dev/null | grep GNU >/dev/null])
])
