Re: [ANN] m4-1.4.17 released [stable]

[Eric Blake]

On 09/23/2013 11:03 AM, David Bernier wrote:
> I hope I will be forgiven for quoting everything.

Sure, even though your question is a bit of a FAQ and unrelated to the
bug that started the thread.

> Eric Blake wrote in part:
> << use './configure --disable-gcc-warnings' until <snip>  >>.
> 
> It seems that  GNU M4  is required before building GNU Autoconf,
> and that Autoconf is used in creating "configure" shell scripts ...
> Ref. to GNU Autoconf homepage:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/

Correct on both counts.  But remember, m4 tarballs already include a
pre-built configure file, so you do NOT need autoconf installed in order
to configure and build m4 (you ONLY need autoconf installed if you are
going to DEVELOP m4).

For that matter, autoconf.git requires that you already have an
INSTALLED autoconf before you can DEVELOP future versions of autoconf.
But again, because autoconf tarballs contain a pre-built configure file,
you do not need to have autoconf installed in order to bootstrap your
development system.

> 
> Can Autoconf by given options? Or, what tells Autoconf how to write
> a configure script, and where are the configure options set/defined?

Yes autoconf can be given options, but those are irrelevant to the
question at hand.  './configure' is a pre-generated script, already
available in the m4 tarball, and we are talking about the options you
had to the configure script, not that you hand to the autoconf version
that generated the configure script.

> In particular, the "--disable-gcc-warnings" option or flag?

./configure --disable-gcc-warnings

works just fine, without having to install autoconf.

> 
> Finally, what precedes in the Build Tool-chain "GNU M4"?

I'm not sure what you are asking by this question.  If you are asking
how to bootstrap a system that has a working shell and compiler, but no
GNU code, in order to turn it into one where you can then develop on
either m4.git or autoconf.git, then you merely need obtain tarballs for
released versions of m4 and autoconf, and use the usual './configure &&
make && make install' steps for installing them, at which point you then
have the installed tools in place for doing further development on
upstream sources.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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