bug#74387: Cannot nest Make conditionals inside Automake conditionals

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hello,

Consider the following:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ guix shell --pure automake autoconf coreutils grep \
  --with-latest=automake --with-latest=autoconf --without-tests=automake

[...]

[env]$ autoconf --version
autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.72
Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+/Autoconf: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>, <https://gnu.org/licenses/exceptions.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by David J. MacKenzie and Akim Demaille.

[env]$ automake --version
automake (GNU automake) 1.17
Features: subsecond-mtime

Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later
  <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>
       and Alexandre Duret-Lutz <adl@gnu.org>.

[env]$ cat configure.ac
AC_INIT([if-without-endif-bug], [0.0.0])

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])

AM_CONDITIONAL([CAN_RUN_TESTS], [true])

AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])

AC_OUTPUT

[env]$ cat Makefile.am
if CAN_RUN_TESTS

SH_TESTS = dummy/test1.sh dummy/test2.sh
SH_TESTS_SLOW = dummy/slow-test.sh

TESTS = $(SH_TESTS)

# By default, filter out slow tests.  The slow tests can be requested
# by setting the WITH_SLOW_TESTS Make variable.
ifdef WITH_SLOW_TESTS
TESTS += $(SH_TESTS_SLOW)
else
$(info Skipping slow tests; set WITH_SLOW_TESTS=1 to run them)
endif

endif

$ autoreconf -vif
autoreconf: export WARNINGS=
autoreconf: Entering directory '.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal --force 
autoreconf: configure.ac: tracing
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Libtool
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Intltool
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gtkdoc
autoreconf: running: 
/gnu/store/6vdjwn5yjnwir2279h0mfc5ws9wnz8d7-autoconf-2.72/bin/autoconf --force
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Autoheader
autoreconf: running: automake --add-missing --copy --force-missing
Makefile.am:16: error: endif without if
autoreconf: error: automake failed with exit status: 1
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

In other words, Automake doesn't handle nesting pure Make conditionals
(ifeq, ifneq, ifdef, offended) inside an Automake conditional block (if).

My attaching the configure.ac and Makefile.am files for convenience.

configure.ac
Description: Binary data

Makefile.am
Description: Binary data

Thanks for maintaining Automake!

-- 
Maxim