Re: [Plib-users] Example config problem

[Sebastian U. <ud...@ha...>]

On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, cho...@at... (C. Hotchkiss) wrote:
> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 22:57:23 -0800
> To: pli...@li...
> From: cho...@at... (C. Hotchkiss)
> Reply-To: pli...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Plib-users] Example config problem
>
> Sebastian,
>
>  >...
> > Hmm ... fix your Cygwin :)
>
> Did that.  When updating cygwin I noticed that autoconf exists in both
> stable and devel versions. I went ahead and let it install both. Now I'm
> not so sure that was a good idea. It doesn't strike me that you are
> using the development version of autoconf. Anyhow, should I edit the
> file tree to move stable autoconf stuff where it apparently is expected?

I do not have much experience with Cygwin - just make sure that you have
only ONE autoconf version installed.


> Also. At this point I retried your original command sequence and
> autoconf still coughs a hairball about the missing .cfg file. Ditto make.
>
> > and in the meantime, get this patch that I just
> > created which adds the missing files:
> >
> > http://www.ude.handshake.de/plib_examples-1.6.1-autoconf.patch.gz
>
> Not succeeding with getting results from updating cygwin I put the patch
> file in the directory "/home/plib_examples-1.6.1", which is where the
> examples were unpacked. Was that the wrong location? Would you like
> another? BTW, you didn't say where to save the patch file.

.. because it does not matter.


> > To apply, cd into a vanilla plib_examples-1.6.1 directory and type:
> >
> > gzip -cd /path/to/plib_examples-1.6.1-autoconf.patch.gz | patch -p1
>
> Didn't work. In /home/plib_examples-1.6.1 I entered
>
> gzip -cd /home/plib_examples-1.6.1-autoconf.patch.gz | patch -p1

Didn't you just say that you put the patch into the directory
/home/plib_examples-1.6.1 ?

So I guess you should better have typed:

gzip -cd /home/plib_examples-1.6.1/plib_examples-1.6.1-autoconf.patch.gz\
| patch -p1


> patch complained that it cannot find the file to patch. It then prompts
> for the file. This repeats for several make files that I know
> ../configure did create (they show up on directory checks.) Is this patch
> looking for the original example tar ball?

Excactly. As I said, cd into a vanilla (i.e. "virgin") plib_examples-1.6.1
tree and apply the patch as described before.

If you still experience problems with a fresh source tree, just shoot me
another mail.


> I hope this continues to be at least a mildly interesting challenge for
> you as I hate exercising people on simple problems.

No - it is our fault that the plib_examples-1.6.1 release is broken and
that we have not yet published a bugfix release, so we are more than happy
to assist you in getting the examples to compile.


> It is an education for me in the assumptions that plib developers made in
> setting up the examples.

I see - but what assumptions are you referring to ?

Perhaps I should have told you that if the examples release would not be
broken, there would not be any dependency on a particular autoconf version
- actually, you would not need autoconf at all to compile the package.

But actually, as you recognized, the tarball is missing some files that
can, however, easily be re-created, provided that you have a sane autoconf
setup.

So even though the immediate issue that prevents you from building the
examples is your broken autoconf version - which I strongly recommend you
to fix -, the actual *root* of the problem is the fact that we made up a
broken tarball.


To Steve:

Back some time ago I sent you a couple of e-mails explaining why the
configure helper scripts did not make it into the release tarball (no, the
root of all evil was not my change to the top-level Makefile.am you were
referring to ...) and showing possible ways to solve the problem. However,
I have not (feel free to correct me in case I am wrong) got a reply from
you yet.

I realize that you may have been busy with work - so I was, aside from the
fact that I was away from my computer for a couple of weeks lately, but as
you see it is really annoying for users to fiddle around with the missing
files problem. Thus, I am forwarding you again my mail from Sep 12; it
would be nice of you could take a stand on the issue.


Thanks in advance,

- Sebastian


Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 02:16:17 +0200
From: Sebastian Ude <ud...@ha...>
To: pli...@li...
Subject: Re: [Plib-users] The examples
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On Wed, 11 Sep 2002, sjb...@ai... (Steve Baker) wrote:
> Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 18:36:00 -0500
> To: pli...@li...
> From: sjb...@ai... (Steve Baker)
> Reply-To: pli...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Plib-users] The examples
>
> Sebastian Ude wrote:
>
> > Again - argh ! From the automake manual:
>
> Well, on the theory of "Go With What Works" - and "Don't F**k With What
> You Don't Understand"...perhaps you'd be so kind as to put the
> Makefile.am's back to where they work - then I'll do another quick
> Examples/Demo's release.
>
> We can figure out what's really wrong later - but it's important that
> everyone can download working examples/demos.
>
> Thanks!

I am sorry Steve, but you can't blame the missing configure helper scripts
on me, and what you suggest does NOT solve the problem.

Look - mkinstalldirs, config.sub, config.guess and install.sh are not
listed the top-level Makefile.am; and not because I removed them, but
because they have never been in there (check the CVS archive, if you want)
!

So how did the files make into the plib-1.6.0.tar.gz tarball, then ? The
answer is simple: Because autoconf has always _automatically_ added these
files to the distribution. I verified it, it really does.

If the files were not added to the distribution, the reason for that was
that they were not in the directory prior to the 'make dist' ! In this
case, it does not help AT ALL to (re-)add anything to Makefile.am; the
build system just can't add a non-existing file to the distribution.


The question we need to ask is why the files were missing in the "examples"
directory, and the answer is that autoconf does NOT install the
'mkinstalldirs', 'missing', 'install-sh', 'config.sub', 'config.guess' in
the current directory if it finds them in '..'.

Try it - take a fresh PLIB CVS tree, run ./autogen.sh from the top-level
plib directory. autoconf will install the configure helper scripts to the
top-level plib dir.

Now, cd to 'examples' and run ./autogen.sh from there as well. autoconf
finds the helper scripts in '..' and does NOT install them to the
'examples' directory again.


As you see, everything works as long as you keep the directory hirarchie -
but if you distribute the 'examples' directory seperately, the example's
configure script won't find its helper scripts in '..' as it expected ->
BUMMER !

That's just the behaviour of autoconf. As you can see, the problem has
*nothing* to do with me removing the helper scripts from the examples
Makefile.am file, which I think was a good move by the way, because it is
just unnecessary to list them there.

Again - re-adding them would not help a single bit, because the problem is
not that the build system does not know about the scripts, but that the
build-system can't add non-existing files to the distribution.


Perhaps you'd be so kind as to do a bit of research in the future prior to
blaming me for problems that I am not responsible for.

Thanks.


The solution of the problem is - if it is not obvious - either to remove
the scripts from the top-level plib directory prior to excecuting
'autogen.sh' from the examples directory in order to make the distribution,
or to move the 'examples' dir out of the plib source tree. In both cases,
'autoconf' won't find the helper scripts in '..', which is what we want to
achieve.


- Sebastian