On Apr 25, 2022, at 12:07 PM, Zack Weinberg <z...@owlfolio.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 25, 2022, at 9:10 AM, Bob Harris wrote: >> Trying to install on MacOS 10.14.6, without invoking admin privs (i.e. >> logged in as a regular non-admin user). Used ./configure’s —prefix >> option to direct the install to a directory that’s in my PATH. >> >> Had successfully installed autoconf 2.69 in 2016 on a similar mac (but >> probably an earlier MacOS) using the same install steps I tried for >> 2.71. > > I *think* this is the same problem as > https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?110492 : current Autoconf doesn't work > correctly with the (rather old) version of GNU M4 that ships with MacOS. > Please try installing a current version of GNU M4 in your PATH and then retry > the build and testsuite. > > If you have time to install a whole bunch of historical versions of GNU M4 > and pin down exactly what is the oldest version that still works, we would > appreciate it. The main reason the configure check hasn't been updated is > that nobody has had the time to do that. > > (If you do those experiments, please don't assume that *unpatched* GNU M4 > 1.4.6 is known-broken; Apple might have introduced bugs.) > > zw
Thanks, Zack, I’ll give that a shot. I do have a question though — Once I install a new version of m4, will it be enough to just rerun "make installcheck” for autoconf, or do I need to repeat the autoconf build process from the start? FWIW, the m4 that I currently have is (as you suspected) the version that came with the machine in 2019, and it reports itself as "GNU M4 1.4.6”. Bob H