[darcs-devel] [darcs #478] Use AS_HELP_STRING() m4 macro in configure.ac breaks build.

David Roundy droundy at abridgegame.org
Mon Aug 1 03:22:08 PDT 2005


On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 06:01:51PM -0700, Wim Lewis wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 08:07:15PM -0400, Vaclav Haisman via RT wrote:
> > Some older (though not too old) autoconfs do not have this macro. I had 
> > autoconf 2.56 and it doesn't have it.
> 
> Good point. I didn't check AS_HELP_STRING()'s history before using it.
> (It would be convenient if the autoconf manual included this information!)
> What are peoples' opinions on the relative merits of avoiding this macro
> vs. requiring a more recent version of autoconf? It does produce slightly
> nicer-looking help strings in configure, but that's a pretty minor
> thing.

I'm pretty ambivalent.  Supporting older autoconfs isn't a high priority
for releases, since people who compile from the tarballs don't need
autoconf at all.  On the other hand, the advantage of AS_HELP_STRING seems
pretty small, as you say.  So I think I'd accept either a patch to update
the autoconf version requirement, or one to convert back to not using
AS_HELP_STRING.
-- 
David Roundy
http://www.darcs.net




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