The generated-configure.sh script is dead, long live autoconf!

[Magnus Ihse Bursie]

On 2018-02-05 21:05, Magnus Ihse Bursie wrote:
> Let's move this discussion to build-dev instead of jdk-dev.
>
> On 2018-02-05 17:30, Thomas Stüfe wrote:
>> Hi Magnus,
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 9:21 AM, Magnus Ihse Bursie 
>> <magnus.ihse.bursie at oracle.com 
>> <mailto:magnus.ihse.bursie at oracle.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     <snip> With the new solution, the exact version of autoconf does
>>     not matter. <snip>
>>
>>
>> It seems to matter. I now get:
>>
>> Using autoconf at /usr/bin/autoconf [autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.63]
>> stdin:33: error: Autoconf version 2.69 or higher is required
>> stdin:33: the top level
>> autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 63
>>
>> Do we actually need this strict check for the autoconf version? Is 
>> there a way to disable the check and retry with my old version?
>
> The check is enforced by
> AC_PREREQ([2.69])
>
> in the top of make/autoconf/configure.ac.
>
> You could try removing it and see what happens. In the "best" case 
> you'll get an error message when autoconf tries to generate the file, 
> then we know for certain that it does not work. :-) Otherwise, you'll 
> have to test the generated configure file more thoroughly to ensure 
> that it really works.
>
> I'm quite certain that older versions (and believe me, everything 
> prior to 2.69 is *ancient*) did not work at all, and that was the 
> reason we added that requirement.
Some code archeology gave me this: 
https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8023957

It seems that we at least supported 2.67 at the time, but we executable 
was not commonly (?) named "autoconf" so we couldn't autodetect it. 
Still can't say about 2.63 though.

>
> /Magnus
>
>>
>> I would dislike for this to be a frequent error now - unfortunately, 
>> we have some build environments where getting the latest GNU tools is 
>> more work than just running an installer.
>>
>> Thanks, Thomas
>>
>>
>>     The build documentation has been updated to reflect this change.
>>
>>     /Magnus
>>
>>
>