emacs-app @25.3: aclocal-1.15: command not found

[emcrisostomo (Enrico Maria Crisostomo)]

emacs-app @25.3_1 fails to upgrade and build log contains the following error:

:notice:build --->  Building emacs-app
:debug:build Executing org.macports.build (emacs-app)
:debug:build Environment:
:debug:build CC_PRINT_OPTIONS='YES'
:debug:build CC_PRINT_OPTIONS_FILE='/opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/.CC_PRINT_OPTIONS'
:debug:build CPATH='/opt/local/include'
:debug:build LIBRARY_PATH='/opt/local/lib'
:debug:build MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET='10.13'
:info:build Executing:  cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3" && /usr/bin/make -j4 -w bootstrap
:debug:build system:  cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3" && /usr/bin/make -j4 -w bootstrap
:info:build make: Entering directory `/opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3'
:info:build cd . && ACLOCAL_PATH='' /bin/sh /opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3/build-aux/missing aclocal-1.15 -I m4
:info:build /opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3/build-aux/missing: line 81: aclocal-1.15: command not found
:info:build WARNING: 'aclocal-1.15' is missing on your system.
:info:build          You should only need it if you modified 'acinclude.m4' or
:info:build          'configure.ac' or m4 files included by 'configure.ac'.
:info:build          The 'aclocal' program is part of the GNU Automake package:
:info:build          <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake>
:info:build          It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run:
:info:build          <http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf>
:info:build          <http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
:info:build          <http://www.perl.org/>
:info:build make: *** [aclocal.m4] Error 127
:info:build make: Leaving directory `/opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3'
:info:build Command failed:  cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_Users_enrico_repos_github_macports-ports_editors_emacs/emacs-app/work/emacs-25.3" && /usr/bin/make -j4 -w bootstrap
:info:build Exit code: 2

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

automake was recently updated to 1.16.1, which explains why aclocal-1.15 no longer exists (aclocal-1.16 now exists, but apparently this port doesn't know to look for it).

For me the real question is why this port is trying to run aclocal in the build phase at all. If aclocal needs to be run, it needs to happen in the configure phase, before the configure script is run.

The reason appears to be that the patchfile patch-inline-25.1-20151017.diff (which is added by the inline variant, which is enabled by default) patches configure.ac. If this patch is going to be kept, then the port needs to run autogen.sh before the configure script. The emacs-devel and emacs-app-devel subports already do that in a pre-configure block, so that block would just need to be extended to the emacs-app subport. And the other patchfile patch-configure.diff, which currently patches configure, needs to be changed to patch configure.ac, because otherwise its changes are lost when autogen.sh runs autoreconf and regenerates configure.

Even though the emacs port itself wouldn't necessarily need to run autoreconf, it would simplify the port and reduce confusion to have all of its subports do so, rather than having some subports maintain patchfiles for configure and other subports maintain patchfiles for configure.ac.

[emcrisostomo (Enrico Maria Crisostomo)]

Hi, I've created a PR to fix this problem: ​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/1542

Would you please review it just in case?

Thanks

[emcrisostomo (Enrico Maria Crisostomo)]

Thanks Ryan, yeah, now I see two patches are independently patching configure and configure.ac. I definitely agree on the practice of not modifying configure directly, so I've updated the patch to configure to update configure.ac instead and I've updated the Portfile to run autogen.sh for the emacs-app subport too.

[emcrisostomo (Enrico Maria Crisostomo)]

In 46f24f45c2b924893a2a35e0d7ebcaa3a6a2762c/macports-ports:

emacs: Fix for automake 1.16

Fixes: #56236

[emcrisostomo (Enrico Maria Crisostomo)]

Fixed in ​​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/1542.