Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 83060
unnecessary automake14 dependency and autoreconf run
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:50:27 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130 Description of problem: The spec file for libtool buildrequires automake14 and runs autoreconf although that would only be needed on x86_64, s390 or s390 architecture (because there are patches being applied for them which need autoreconf to be run) or if %_without_check is off. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Log in for example on i386 with %_without_check turned off in ~/.rpmmacros 2. rpm --rebuild libtool-*.src.rpm Actual Results: error: failed build dependencies: automake14 is needed by libtool-1.4.3-4 Expected Results: Executing(%prep): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.17563 + umask 022 + cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD + cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD + rm -rf libtool-1.4.3 ... Additional info:
Created attachment 89691 [details] Proposed fix for the problem
You might be right, but is the dependence on automake14 such a big problem? Autotools dependencies are complicated, with current patches ac-local needs to be run anyway, so it seems safer to use aclocal-1.4 (or aclocal-1.5 at least).
As far as I understand there are generally four classes of people that get in touch with a program: developers, distribution vendors/package builders, system administrators and users. I have the feeling that build dependence on auto*/libtool is like requiring a system administrator to install a compiler just to modify the system configuration. That means I think it would be great if such dependencies could be avoided for packages at all means, especially for the auto*/libtool packages themselves (if libtool needed automake, and maybe automake needed libtool that surely wouldn't be good). Isn't auto*/libtool meant to *facilitate* the build process and to avoid complications? Wasn't it designed to allow someone who wants to build the package from source to do so without much trouble and especially without installing extra packages like auto*/libtool (or several versions of them which sadly seems to have become regular)? auto*/libtool files should IMO really only be patched (leading to auto*-buildrequire) if it's clear that the issue can't be solved by moving the bug upstream. Have a look at the patch, it doesn't completely eliminate the automake dependency. But in those cases (on mainstream platforms and if tests are turned off) where it's not really required, it makes the package build without automake14.
The automake14 buildrequirement is gone in libtool-1.5-1, though it still requires autoconf and automake to build because of the autoreconf still present.
I have been waiting for one month now, yet I still cannot find libtool-1.5-1 on the redhat ftp server in the rawhide directory. I have thought about the whole problem of auto*lation and I have some new ideas on how to avoid it, but I want to check the new package first.
Okay, got the new package now. Despite autoreconf being run, make still sees something which it needs to run auto* for: # rpm --rebuild libtool-1.5-2.src.rpm Installing libtool-1.5-2.src.rpm Executing(%prep): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.15704 [...] + autoreconf + exit 0 Executing(%build): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.57331 [...] + ./configure [...] [...] configure: creating ./config.status config.status: creating Makefile config.status: creating config.h config.status: executing depfiles commands + make rm -f acinclude.m4 acinclude.m4T cat ./libtool.m4 > acinclude.m4T mv acinclude.m4T acinclude.m4 cd . && /bin/sh /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/libtool-1.5/missing --run aclocal-1.7 cd . && \ /bin/sh /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/libtool-1.5/missing --run automake-1.7 --gnu Makefile [...] I had the idea to include an additional -derived patch instead of running autoreconf to bring the derived files up to date. But as long as the above problem isn't solved, auto* would still be required.
I now figured out how these unnecessary auto* runs can be avoided. See the patches. (And if you wish, you can now run rpm -bp and generate a diff from the original patched version to the prepared BUILD/libtool* for the derivative files so auto* is not required anymore.)
Created attachment 94784 [details] Patch for the spec file to use the modified bootstrap script
Created attachment 94785 [details] Patch to make bootstrap leave the tree in a distributable state
The 1.5.10 release should not require any Red Hat patches, nor any calls to any of the autotools. Due to the way the autotools are used in our own build roots, I have been unable to upgrade our shipped version to 1.5.10, but will attempt to do it the moment Fedore Core 3 has been released.