autogen.sh failed on CentOS-4.6

[Yishin Li]

The Linux installed in my PC is CentOS-4.6 and CentOS-5.3. Both of them come with "autoconf 2.59", which can not process the configure script generated by "autoconf 2.63" of my Cygwin laptop.

* add "--force" parameter to autoreconf (autogen.sh)

I then got the following error:
src/Makefile.am:1: Libtool library used but `LIBTOOL' is undefined
src/Makefile.am:1:
src/Makefile.am:1: The usual way to define `LIBTOOL' is to add `AC_PROG_LIBTOOL'
src/Makefile.am:1: to `configure.ac' and run `aclocal' and `autoconf' again.
autoreconf: automake failed with exit status: 1

* replace AC_PROG_RANLIB with AC_PROG_LIBTOOL (configure.ac)

configure.ac:33: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_TYPE_UINT16_T
    If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
    See the Autoconf documentation.
=> It seems, that these macros were introduced in autoconf version 2.59-5 (or 2.59c)
     (https://gna.org/bugs/?12089)
     (http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/autoconf/Particular-Types.html)

* comment out AC_TYPE_UINT*_T (configure.ac)

* ./autogen.sh; configure; make;
  unit-test-slave and unit-test-master ... passed on CentOS-4.6
  unit-test-slave and unit-test-master ... passed on Cygwin

Attached is my patch toward autogen.sh and configure.ac
* WARNING: the INSTALL file will be overwrite after executing autogen.sh

[Yishin Li (yishin-li)]

update autoconf settings for CentOS 4 and CentOS 5
files: autogen.sh and configure.ac

[Stéphane Raimbault (sra)]

'Fix committed' means the fix is included in the main repository of the project not in your repo.

It's a regression to remove these checks:
AC_TYPE_UINT*_T (configure.ac)
but there are not really important so OK

I don't think it's a good idea to use --force, why do you need it?
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~yishin-li/libmodbus/mou/revision/172

[Yishin Li (yishin-li)]

The make will end up with infinite loop of "../libtool: line 479: CDPATH: command not found", if I upload the libmodbus tree, which is autogen-ed by Cygwin (autoconf 2.63), to CentOS 5.3 (w/ autoconf 2.59)

$ ./autogen.sh
$ make
make all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/ysli/proj/act/proto/sw/libmodbus/mou'
Making all in src
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/ysli/proj/act/proto/sw/libmodbus/mou/src'
if /bin/sh ../libtool --tag=CC --mode=compile gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -g -O2 -MT modbus.lo -MD -MP -MF ".deps/modbus.Tpo" -c -o modbus.lo modbus.c; \
        then mv -f ".deps/modbus.Tpo" ".deps/modbus.Plo"; else rm -f ".deps/modbus.Tpo"; exit 1; fi
../libtool: line 479: CDPATH: command not found
../libtool: line 479: CDPATH: command not found
../libtool: line 479: CDPATH: command not found

autoreconf: running: libtoolize --copy
libtoolize: `config.guess' exists: use `--force' to overwrite
libtoolize: `config.sub' exists: use `--force' to overwrite
libtoolize: `ltmain.sh' exists: use `--force' to overwrite

The above is the clue I found regarding "--force". I know it's not a good approach because it will overwrite "INSTALL" file. Is there a clean way to remove all the Autotools generated files? Neither "make maintainer-clean-am" nor "make maintainer-clean" works for me.

[Stéphane Raimbault (sra)]

Could you try a 'make distclean' before running ./autogen.sh?

I've removed INSTALL file (and ignored with bzr) and added --force on trunk.

[Yishin Li (yishin-li)]

The autogen.sh works in CentOS 5.3.