OpenSRF configure.am showing deprecation warnings with autoreconf -i step

[Chris Sharp]

On Ubuntu 14.04 (automake 1.14.1), I'm seeing the following output when doing 'autoreconf -i':

opensrf@ubuntu-14-04:~/OpenSRF$ autoreconf -i
libtoolize: putting auxiliary files in `.'.
libtoolize: copying file `./ltmain.sh'
libtoolize: Consider adding `AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])' to configure.ac and
libtoolize: rerunning libtoolize, to keep the correct libtool macros in-tree.
libtoolize: Consider adding `-I m4' to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in Makefile.am.
configure.ac:30: warning: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE: two- and three-arguments forms are deprecated. For more info, see:
configure.ac:30: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Modernize-AM_005fINIT_005fAUTOMAKE-invocation
configure.ac:146: installing './compile'
configure.ac:146: installing './config.guess'
configure.ac:146: installing './config.sub'
configure.ac:30: installing './install-sh'
configure.ac:30: installing './missing'
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
src/c-apps/Makefile.am: installing './depcomp'
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
configure.ac:263: warning: 'INCLUDES' is the old name for 'AM_CPPFLAGS' (or '*_CPPFLAGS')
parallel-tests: installing './test-driver'

So it looks like our configure/automake pieces need some reworking.

Colorful discussion of this issue here:

http://gnu-automake.7480.n7.nabble.com/Removal-of-INCLUDES-in-favour-of-AM-CPPFLAGS-td19736.html

[Warren Layton (warren-layton)]

I'm not autotools expert, but could the following patch do the trick? With it in place, I'm able to build and run OpenSRF without any issues.

[Warren Layton (warren-layton)]

What the heck, why not remove the remaining warnings spit out by `autoreconf -i` ?

[Ben Shum (bshum)]

Well, applied these two patches to both 12.04 and 14.04 test servers and the big stumbler here is the lack of the m4 directory. With 14.04, it figured this out and added an m4 directory, but in 12.04 it stops with "aclocal: couldn't open directory `m4': No such file or directory"

Creating an m4 directory in the OpenSRF area allows things to move forward again.

I'm going to get some further input from folks who know more about autoconf and it's relationship with m4, but we may want to add the m4 directory permanently to OpenSRF?

Also, thanks Warren for the patches! One tiny tidbit, they lack a "Signed-off-by" line to them. See http://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=dev:git#sign-offs

[Chris Sharp (chrissharp123)]

Following up on this bug since I got curious about its status. Ben, looks like the problem you hit with 12.04 is this Debian bug (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=565663) which apparently got fixed upstream between 12.04 and 14.04. I can see on the web that several projects do just create an empty "m4" directory in the source root directory, but 1) that's a workaround and 2) we would also have to work around git's behavior with empty dirs (which is brought up in the Debian bug conversation). In any case, since the project is deprecating 12.04 along with the next release, we might consider accepting Warren's patches as-is (assuming they work with Ubuntu 16.04 and supported Debian versions).

[Ben Shum (bshum)]

Hi Chris, that sounds like a good idea to me since I just filed the Ubuntu Precise 12.04 ending bug along with patches for that. I'll re-test Warren's patches against 16.04 and Debian Jessie.

However, we still need Warren's signoff / DCO

[Chris Sharp (chrissharp123)]

I pushed a working branch implementing a similar solution to Warren's changes:

https://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/OpenSRF.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/csharp/lp1272937_fix_configure_am_deprecation_warnings

[Jason Stephenson (jstephenson)]

Works for me! Fix commited.

Thanks Chris and Warren!