Which component controls automake.info ?

Post by Jeffrey Walton
I'm trying to update Autoconf and Automake on an old CentOS system.
MAKEINFO doc/automake.info
/home/scripts/automake-1.15.1/lib/missing: line 81: makeinfo: command not found
WARNING: 'makeinfo' is missing on your system.
You should only need it if you modified a '.texi' file, or
any other file indirectly affecting the aspect of the manual.
<http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/>
The spurious makeinfo call might also be the consequence of
using a buggy 'make' (AIX, DU, IRIX), in which case you might
<http://www.gnu.org/software/make/>
gmake: *** [Makefile:2518: doc/automake.info] Error 127
According to ./configure --help, I can disable it with
--disable-FEATURE. The problem I am having is, I don't know what the
feature's name is.
I tried the obvious ones, like --disable-docs and --disable--texi.
What is the feature name of the documentation so I can disable it?
(It also seems like a bad idea to fail a build for a feature I don't
want. Maybe it would be more prudent to print a warning message
instead of failing the primary task).

Install it with `yum install texinfo` perhaps?
(https://stackoverflow.com/questions/338317/what-is-makeinfo-and-how-do-i-get-it)

--
VH

Mathieu Lirzin

2018-01-03 15:00:00 UTC

Hello,

Documentation is not considered as a "feature" in that sense.

Documentation is already "built" in distributed releases so unless you
are modifying the ".texi" sources, 'makeinfo' shouldn't be required by
the build process.

Are you build from a tarball or the Git development repository?

Thanks.

--
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761 070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37

Jeffrey Walton

2018-01-04 08:20:22 UTC

Post by Jeffrey Walton
I'm trying to update Autoconf and Automake on an old CentOS system.
MAKEINFO doc/automake.info
/home/scripts/automake-1.15.1/lib/missing: line 81: makeinfo: command not found
...
What is the feature name of the documentation so I can disable it?
(It also seems like a bad idea to fail a build for a feature I don't
want. Maybe it would be more prudent to print a warning message
instead of failing the primary task).

Documentation is not considered as a "feature" in that sense.
Documentation is already "built" in distributed releases so unless you
are modifying the ".texi" sources, 'makeinfo' shouldn't be required by
the build process.

Thanks Mathieu.

Maybe autoreconf is doing it. I need to use it on a lot of older
systems, like CentOS 5 or my PowerMac G5.

I use the old iron for testing. Most of the software is out of date.

Post by Mathieu Lirzin
Are you build from a tarball or the Git development repository?

I'm using the latest release tarball. It is
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.15.1.tar.gz

Jeff

Mathieu Lirzin

2018-01-04 12:45:38 UTC

Hello,

Documentation is already "built" in distributed releases so unless you
are modifying the ".texi" sources, 'makeinfo' shouldn't be required by
the build process.

Maybe autoreconf is doing it. I need to use it on a lot of older
systems, like CentOS 5 or my PowerMac G5.
I use the old iron for testing. Most of the software is out of date.

Post by Mathieu Lirzin
Are you build from a tarball or the Git development repository?

I'm using the latest release tarball. It is
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.15.1.tar.gz

Indeed the 'autoreconf' step might be the issue. When building from a
release tarball the build/install process should only be "./configure &&
make && make install". See the INSTALL file for more detailed
information.

The 'autoreconf' step is meant for developers and maintainers building
from the Git repository. This step generates (among other things) the
"./configure" shell script that is then distributed in tarballs. This
staged build process allows to separate developer dependencies
(Autoconf, Automake, Makeinfo, Help2man, ...) from regular dependency.

HTH.

--
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761 070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37

Jeffrey Walton

2018-01-04 14:24:48 UTC

Post by Mathieu Lirzin
Hello,

Documentation is already "built" in distributed releases so unless you
are modifying the ".texi" sources, 'makeinfo' shouldn't be required by
the build process.

Maybe autoreconf is doing it. I need to use it on a lot of older
systems, like CentOS 5 or my PowerMac G5.
I use the old iron for testing. Most of the software is out of date.

Post by Mathieu Lirzin
Are you build from a tarball or the Git development repository?

I'm using the latest release tarball. It is
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.15.1.tar.gz

This worked well. It was run after configure.

sed -e 's|^MAKEINFO =*|MAKEINFO = true|g' Makefile > Makefile.fixed
mv Makefile.fixed Makefile

Jeff

Mathieu Lirzin

2018-01-04 15:09:35 UTC

Post by Mathieu Lirzin
Hello,