The best version of m4

[Martin Schlemmer]

Hi

We originally used m4-1.4o when I started here, and then later changed
to m4-1.4ppre2 for some reason.  Mandrake uses m4-1.4ppre2, and Redhat
use an even older never released 1.4.1.

Some time back we ran into some issues.  Some people wanted to compile
cvs php with libtool-1.4.3, which as far as I knew needed autoconf-2.5,
else you get some errors:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
rebuilding configure
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_COMPILE was called before AC_AIX
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_RUN was called before AC_AIX
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_COMPILE was called before AC_AIX
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_RUN was called before AC_AIX
autoconf: Undefined macros:
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_ACVERSION
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
***BUG in Autoconf--please report*** AC_TRY_DLOPEN_SELF
rebuilding acconfig.h
rebuilding main/php_config.h.in
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_COMPILE was called before AC_AIX
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_RUN was called before AC_AIX
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_COMPILE was called before AC_AIX
configure.in:562: AC_TRY_RUN was called before AC_AIX
----------------------------------------------------------------------

This is however not the case with m4-1.4 (the original released
1994-11-05).  Like I said .. it does work with autoconf-2.5
however:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
buildconf: checking installation...
buildconf: autoconf version 2.57 (ok)
buildconf: Your version of autoconf likely contains buggy cache code.
           Running cvsclean for you.
           To avoid this, install autoconf-2.13 and automake-1.5.
buildconf: automake version 1.4-p5 (ok)
buildconf: libtool version 1.4.3 (ok)
rebuilding configure
rebuilding acconfig.h
rebuilding main/php_config.h.in
WARNING: Using auxiliary files such as `acconfig.h', `config.h.bot'
WARNING: and `config.h.top', to define templates for `config.h.in'
WARNING: is deprecated and discouraged.

WARNING: Using the third argument of `AC_DEFINE' and
WARNING: `AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED' allows to define a template without
WARNING: `acconfig.h':

WARNING:   AC_DEFINE([NEED_MAIN], 1,
WARNING:             [Define if a function `main' is needed.])

WARNING: More sophisticated templates can also be produced, see the
WARNING: documentation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

You only get the warning about auxiliary files.

Now, the question is:

1) What is the version of m4 that you consider stable ?  When will there
   be a new release if ever ?

2) Is above problem that we need m4-1.4, or that m4-1.4 just do not have
   the needed features to detect the problems autoconf-2.1 have with
   libtool-1.4.3 ?

The bug at our bug tracker can be found at:

  http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15573

Some comments appreciated.


Regards,

-- 

Martin Schlemmer
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop/System Team Developer
Cape Town, South Africa