[OpenAFS-devel] Minimum autoconf version

[Russ Allbery]

Ken Hornstein <kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil> writes:

> What's the minimum autoconf version that we are using with OpenAFS?

> I ask because in the autoconf glue I did for aklog, I started getting
> complaints because I used AC_ARG_VAR and apparantly some people out
> there (you know who you are) were still using autoconf 2.13, which
> didn't have it.  I'm wondering if we can all agree on what the minimum
> autoconf version is and standardize on it with AC_PREREQ (I'm hoping it
> will be something newer than 2.13).  I also noticed that the configure
> behavior is different for some macros between 2.13 and later versions
> (specifically, the tests done when doing AC_CHECK_HEADERS seems to be
> more comprehensive in later version of autoconf), and that complicated
> things when I was writing the autoconf tests; that's why I'd like to get
> the autoconf version mess straightened out.

I'd say it's probably a good idea to live with what we've got for 1.4 if
possible but then require something newer after that.

I would personally vote for just requiring 2.59.  All the distributors are
shipping it at this point including the BSDs so far as I know, it's been
out for a while, it's fairly stable, and I don't think there's a lot to be
gained by allowing earlier 2.5x versions of we're going to jump to 2.5x.

This will probably require some work to go through all the macros and make
sure that everything is properly quoted.  I've done this for about five
projects already, and can take a pass at it if the above strategy sounds
agreeable to everyone.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>