Hi Basil,
Thanks for the feedback.
> > +One such propagated value is
> > +the value of the Automake-defined variable @code{$(VERSION)}.
> > +(There is also the Autoconf-defined variable @code{$(PACKAGE_VERSION)},
> > +but nothing except Automake ought to use it.)
>
> Why ought nothing else use PACKAGE_VERSION?
1) Because where Autoconf and Automake have competing functionalities for
the same purpose, you better use the Automake one and ignore the Autoconf
one. For example, the macros $(mkdir_p) and $(MKDIR_P); that was such a
mess... If you use $(VERSION) in some places and $(PACKAGE_VERSION) in
other places, you make your life hard.
2) Because with the documented approach, $(PACKAGE_VERSION) comes out as
empty. I didn't bother assigning to PACKAGE_VERSION the same value as
to VERSION.
> I understand that projects using Automake can use VERSION in place of
> PACKAGE_VERSION, but I'm not aware of anything analogous to other
> PACKAGE_* definitions, such as PACKAGE_STRING or PACKAGE_URL.
Right. PACKAGE_BUGREPORT, PACKAGE_URL, etc. should be assigned directly,
in configure.ac, if you need them.
> > +The recommended code pattern is
> > +@example
> > +AC_INIT
> > +AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([@var{unique-file-in-source-dir}])
> > +AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([build-aux])
> > +VERSION_NUMBER=`cd $srcdir \
> > + && build-aux/git-version-gen .tarball-version \
> > + | sed -e 's/dirty$/modified/'`
> > +gl_INIT_PACKAGE([@var{package}], [$VERSION_NUMBER])
> > +AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([@var{options}])
> > +@end example
>
> AC_INIT is documented as taking two mandatory arguments.
... but when one uses AC_INIT as documented this way, VERSION must already
be known at autoconf time. Which is not what we want, because it makes
things harder for the maintainer.
> The following commentary for Autoconf's AC_INIT definition in
> lib/autoconf/general.m4 suggests that one can define the AC_PACKAGE_*
> macros before invoking AC_INIT:
But the Autoconf documentation says that these AC_PACKAGE_* macros are
"defined by AC_INIT". Therefore it sounds hairy to define them in configure.ac.
> From reading Gnulib's m4/init-package-version.m4 commentary I can
> appreciate that it's a delicate dance
Yes, and I hope that once the approach to let 'git-version-gen' be run
at configure time (as opposed to autoconf time) is more widely accepted,
we can remove some of the hurdles in Autoconf and in Automake that make
m4/init-package-version.m4 so delicate.
> What was previously:
>
> src_libfoo_la_LIBADD = $(top_builddir)/lib/libfoo.la
>
> is now:
>
> src_libfoo_la_LIBADD = $(top_builddir)/lib/lib.la
>
> IIUC this is because Gnulib's build-aux/bootstrap looks at AC_INIT
> arguments in order to construct the gnulib-tool --lib argument.
Thanks for reporting this. Fixed through the patch below.
> - The biggest consequence is that 'make' fails after editing
> e.g. configure.ac:
>
> 0. git clean -fdx
> 1. export GNULIB_SRCDIR='/dir/of/gnulib'
> 2. ./bootstrap --no-git --skip-po
> 3. ./configure
> 4. echo >> configure.ac
> 5. make
>
> CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/bash
> '/home/blc/src/foo/build-aux/missing' aclocal-1.16
> configure.ac:10: error: AC_INIT should be called with package and
> version arguments
> /usr/share/aclocal-1.16/init.m4:29: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
> configure.ac:10: the top level
> autom4te: error: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
> aclocal-1.16: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 1
> make: *** [Makefile:1116: aclocal.m4] Error 1
Here the cause is a missing -I option to 'aclocal'. It has not found the
m4/*.m4 files, thus the error message from AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.
The fix is to add a definition
ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4
to the top-level Makefile.am. Hmm. configure.ac already contains
AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS([m4])
but Automake ignores it. The Automake documentation says that the
ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4
line is redundant for Automake ≥ 1.13, but that is not the case.
> > +The second such old code pattern
> > +is to invoke @code{git-version-gen} at @code{autoconf} time:
> > +@example
> > +AC_INIT([@var{package}],
> > + m4_esyscmd([build-aux/git-version-gen .tarball-version \
> > + | sed -e 's/dirty$/modified/'])])
> > +AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([@var{unique-file-in-source-dir}])
> > +AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([build-aux])
> > +AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([@var{options}])
> > +@end example
>
> Should the Autoconf manual be updated as well? This pattern is still
> described in (info "(autoconf) Initializing configure").
Good point. Thanks for the reminder. This too will need to be discussed
with the Autoconf maintainers.
Bruno
2025-01-23 Bruno Haible <[email protected]>
bootstrap: Make it work with module 'package-version'.
Reported by Basil L. Contovounesios <[email protected]> in
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2025-01/msg00195.html>.
* top/bootstrap-funclib.sh (normalize_package_name): New variable.
(extract_package_name): Don't normalize the package name here.
(package): Also look at the first argument of a gl_INIT_PACKAGE
invocation.
* build-aux/bootstrap: Regenerated.
diff --git a/build-aux/bootstrap b/build-aux/bootstrap
index f6a6214315..8e15db3bf3 100755
--- a/build-aux/bootstrap
+++ b/build-aux/bootstrap
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ medir=`dirname "$me"`
# A library of shell functions for autopull.sh, autogen.sh, and bootstrap.
-scriptlibversion=2025-01-09.08; # UTC
+scriptlibversion=2025-01-23.20; # UTC
# Copyright (C) 2003-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
#
@@ -152,7 +152,8 @@ po_download_command_format=\
"wget --mirror --level=1 -nd -nv -A.po -P '%s' \
https://translationproject.org/latest/%s/";
-# Prefer a non-empty tarname (4th argument of AC_INIT if given), else
+# When extracting the package name from an AC_INIT invocation,
+# prefer a non-empty tarname (4th argument of AC_INIT if given), else
# fall back to the package name (1st argument with munging).
extract_package_name='
/^AC_INIT(\[*/{
@@ -164,17 +165,25 @@ extract_package_name='
q
}
s/[],)].*//
- s/^GNU //
- y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/
- s/[^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_]/-/g
p
}
'
-package=$(${AUTOCONF:-autoconf} --trace AC_INIT:\$4 configure.ac 2>/dev/null)
+normalize_package_name='
+ s/^GNU //
+ y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/
+ s/[^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_]/-/g
+'
+package=$(${AUTOCONF:-autoconf} --trace 'gl_INIT_PACKAGE:$1' configure.ac \
+ 2>/dev/null)
if test -z "$package"; then
- package=$(sed -n "$extract_package_name" configure.ac) \
- || die 'cannot find package name in configure.ac'
+ package=$(${AUTOCONF:-autoconf} --trace 'AC_INIT:$4' configure.ac \
+ 2>/dev/null)
+ if test -z "$package"; then
+ package=$(sed -n "$extract_package_name" configure.ac) \
+ || die 'cannot find package name in configure.ac'
+ fi
fi
+package=$(echo "$package" | sed "$normalize_package_name")
gnulib_name=lib$package
build_aux=build-aux
diff --git a/top/bootstrap-funclib.sh b/top/bootstrap-funclib.sh
index a48bd63bb2..1810a5c783 100644
--- a/top/bootstrap-funclib.sh
+++ b/top/bootstrap-funclib.sh
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
# A library of shell functions for autopull.sh, autogen.sh, and bootstrap.
-scriptlibversion=2025-01-09.08; # UTC
+scriptlibversion=2025-01-23.20; # UTC
# Copyright (C) 2003-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
#
@@ -115,7 +115,8 @@ po_download_command_format=\
"wget --mirror --level=1 -nd -nv -A.po -P '%s' \
https://translationproject.org/latest/%s/";
-# Prefer a non-empty tarname (4th argument of AC_INIT if given), else
+# When extracting the package name from an AC_INIT invocation,
+# prefer a non-empty tarname (4th argument of AC_INIT if given), else
# fall back to the package name (1st argument with munging).
extract_package_name='
/^AC_INIT(\[*/{
@@ -127,17 +128,25 @@ extract_package_name='
q
}
s/[],)].*//
- s/^GNU //
- y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/
- s/[^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_]/-/g
p
}
'
-package=$(${AUTOCONF:-autoconf} --trace AC_INIT:\$4 configure.ac 2>/dev/null)
+normalize_package_name='
+ s/^GNU //
+ y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/
+ s/[^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_]/-/g
+'
+package=$(${AUTOCONF:-autoconf} --trace 'gl_INIT_PACKAGE:$1' configure.ac \
+ 2>/dev/null)
if test -z "$package"; then
- package=$(sed -n "$extract_package_name" configure.ac) \
- || die 'cannot find package name in configure.ac'
+ package=$(${AUTOCONF:-autoconf} --trace 'AC_INIT:$4' configure.ac \
+ 2>/dev/null)
+ if test -z "$package"; then
+ package=$(sed -n "$extract_package_name" configure.ac) \
+ || die 'cannot find package name in configure.ac'
+ fi
fi
+package=$(echo "$package" | sed "$normalize_package_name")
gnulib_name=lib$package
build_aux=build-aux
