Oh, duh, it's not a prereq for just building. Ignore my comment. Blame it on Monday :)
-DrD- > It's traditional to ship the generated configure, although some projects have > waffled and only ship configure in their "release tarballs". If you don't > ship configure, you are forcing everyone to install yet more build tools, and > you introduce bugs based on the autoconf version of the builder. I recommend > including configure in the SCM, standardizing the version of autoconf used to > generate configure and enforcing that somehow. > > > On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 9:06 AM, David DeHaven <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> Hi, > >> > >> Sorry if this has come up before, but I cannot find anything in the > >> archives. > >> > >> Is it possible to agree an autoconf version to use to generate the checked > >> in generated-configure.sh? > >> > >> I recently had to merge, and regenerate this file, and found versions that > >> were generated with 2.67, 2.68, and 2.69. Using such different versions > >> makes it nearly impossible to see the relevant diffs in > >> generated-configure.sh. While using the same version greatly, but not > >> completely, simplifies the number of changes. > >> > >> Is there any reason why not to agree a specific version? > > > > My understanding was it is difficult to use a non-standard version on some > > (most?) platforms. Most people would probably balk at having to use any > > version other than that installed by default on their system. > > Alternatively, if we want a specific version we could mandate that the > > checked in generated-configure.sh be pushed by a project owner with access > > to the "official" version. To my knowledge there's only been one buggy (due > > to buggy autoconf which generated it) generated-configure.sh been checked > > in. The diffs are annoying but in theory you're not really supposed to read > > generated-configure.sh, instead you should be reviewing the autoconf inputs > > which generate it. > > If autoconf is a prerequisite for building, why not just leave > generated-configure.sh as a generated file rather than in SCM? I understand > it lengthens the build time a bit, but unless you're tweaking the build > system you only need to run configure sparingly. > > -DrD- > >
