[Python-checkins] r74049 - in python/branches/py3k: configure pyconfig.h.in

["Martin v. Löwis"]

>> I think this change is incorrect - you should have used autoconf 2.61,
>> not autoconf 2.63. The size of the diff should have told you that
>> something is wrong.
>>
> 
> I don't understand; why should autoconf 2.61 be used instead of a
> newer version?

Because 2.63 doesn't work. I suppose you have edited the configure file
before checking it in; if I run 2.63 again, subversion will
complain

svn: File 'configure' has inconsistent newlines
svn: Inconsistent line ending style

That's because 2.63 is broken; it emits a blank carriage-return
character in the file which subversion cannot deal with.

> It is a matter to make the changes in the generated
> output easier to review? If so, would it be sufficient to provide a
> diff of the old configure script and the script generated by autoconf
> 2.61?

It's also desirable that all committers use the same version, so the
that the file doesn't change forth and back all the time. It's sometimes
important to confirm that the changes get passed through correctly into
the generated script; this because tedious if you also have to fight
the version differences.

So by policy decision, we are all using a fixed version, and that
is currently 2.61 - see the comment at the beginning of the file.
It would be possible to change the policy, but such a change must
be agreed.

> Anyway, I am not against reverting the change and regenerating the
> configure script with autoconf 2.61. However, there isn't a autoconf
> 2.61 package available for my Ubuntu 9.04 machine. So, I need to
> compile it myself to fix this.

Correct - although "compile" is a bit of an overstatement; autoconf
installation doesn't really compile anything.

I usually do

  configure --prefix=~/ac261
  make
  make install

and then run ~/ac261/bin/autoconf when I need to generate Python's
configure.

I guess I will put some m4 magic into the file to prevent it from
being compiled with anything than the official version, so that I
don't have to explain all that every two months.

Regards,
Martin