Control: tag -1 confirmed
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 11:29:19AM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> Package: dh-autoreconf
> Version: 7
> Severity: wishlist
>
> dh-autoreconf(7) says:
>
> dh_autoreconf is a superset of the autotools-dev debhelper addons, so
> you do not need --with=autotools_dev if you use --with=autoreconf. In
> fact, in most cases they should not be used together, as it may lead
> to unpredictable behaviour.
>
> For the most part, I agree. However, there is one not entirely uncommon
> situation where dh_autoreconf is not in fact a superset of the
> autotools-dev add-ons. autoreconf doesn't update config.guess and
> config.sub directly, but only (as far as I know) by way of automake and
> possibly libtoolize. If you have a package that only uses Autoconf and
> not Automake or Libtool, but that does use the AC_CANONICAL_* macros (I
> have one such, admittedly the joke package vigor, but no doubt more
> sensible examples exist), then dh_autoreconf will not update
> config.{guess,sub} but dh_autotools-dev_updateconfig will. It's
> therefore not strictly true to say that the former is a superset of the
> latter.
I wonder why autoreconf does not just update config.guess/config.sub
if it detects an AC_CANONICAL_* MACRO.
>
> It took me a while to figure out what was going on, and I know the
> autotools fairly well, so I think it would be worth documenting this
> situation. I tend to agree that combining dh_autoreconf and the
> autotools-dev add-ons is rather confusing, although I suspect it could
> be made to work with some care. My approach was to build-depend on
> "debhelper (>= 7.0.50~), dh-autoreconf, autotools-dev", and then put
> this in debian/rules (actually I did something slightly different in
> vigor because its configure lives in a build/ subdirectory, but it would
> be better to document a more common case):
>
> autoreconf:
> autoreconf -f -i
> cp -f /usr/share/misc/config.guess /usr/share/misc/config.guess ./
>
> override_dh_autoreconf:
> dh_autoreconf debian/rules -- autoreconf
I think that using the autotools-dev add-on together with dh-autoreconf
should work in such a case as well (using them together is only problematic
if autoreconf changes config.{guess,sub}; otherwise it should just
work). Although that solution works just as well.
>
> Perhaps it would be worth adding something along these lines as an
> example, to help out the next developer who runs into this?
Absolutely.
--
Julian Andres Klode - Debian Developer, Ubuntu Member
See http://wiki.debian.org/JulianAndresKlode and http://jak-linux.org/.
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