Re: Failure building collectd when autoconf has been updated to 2.72

[Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>]

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Hi Michael,

Also reran the collectd autoreconf with the autoconf-2.71 and in that case the line has yes:) so something about the autoconf-2.72 is causing that one yes: in the configure file to be missing the ) . There are something like 20 of those yes: entries and with the autoconf-2.72 only the one I show below is the one with a missing ), all the rest have a yes:) entry.

Regards,

Adolf.

On 19/11/2024 14:43, Adolf Belka wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> I obtained the configure created by the autoreconf etc and I have found the error. Here is the affected line 18710
>
>
> 18706   if test "x$ac_ct_CC" = x; then
> 18707     CC=""
> 18708   else
> 18709     case $cross_compiling:$ac_tool_warned in
> 18710 yes:
> 18711
> 18712 { printf "%s\n" "$as_me:${as_lineno-$LINENO}: WARNING: using cross tools not prefixed with host triplet" >&5
> 18713 printf "%s\n" "$as_me: WARNING: using cross tools not prefixed with host triplet" >&2;}
> 18714 ac_tool_warned=yes ;;
> 18715 esac
> 18716     CC=$ac_ct_CC
> 18717   fi
> 18718 else
> 18719   CC="$ac_cv_prog_CC"
> 18720 fi
>
> That line should be yes:) so it is missing a right bracket. Not sure if you can figure where and why that is occurring but presumably a patch can be written to be applied after the autoreconf etc and before the ./configure command
>
> Regards,
> Adolf.
>
>
> On 19/11/2024 12:41, Michael Tremer wrote:
>> Hello Adolf,
>>
>> In the build script we are running autoreconf which will regenerate the configure script:
>>
>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/collectd;h=d1d4ea721386803c31599315de956373417c2dcf;hb=HEAD#l119
>>
>> Is there any output of that command? There should be some warnings which might help us to find out what we need to change.
>>
>>> On 13 Nov 2024, at 10:30, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I did an update run with autoconf taking it from 2.71 to 2.72
>>>
>>> autoconf built without any problems, however collectd then failed for a syntax error in the configure file.
>>>
>>> Confirmed that this was due to autoconf by changing the versions back and forward and the problem went away and then came back again.
>>>
>>> The collectd build error message is
>>>
>>> checking for size_t... yes
>>> checking for uid_t... yes
>>> checking for gid_t... yes
>>> ./configure: line 18710: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
>>> ./configure: line 18710: `yes:'
>>> make: *** [collectd:120: /usr/src/log/collectd-4.10.9] Error 2
>>>
>>> The section around line 18710 in the configure file is
>>>
>>> 18707    do :
>>> 18708       as_ac_Header=`$as_echo "ac_cv_header_$ac_header" | $as_tr_sh`
>>> 18709    ac_fn_c_check_header_mongrel "$LINENO" "$ac_header" "$as_ac_Header" "$ac_includes_default"
>>> 18710    if eval test \"x\$"$as_ac_Header"\" = x"yes"; then :
>>
>> There is an extra : here which is probably what causes the syntax error.
>>
>>> 18711      cat >>confdefs.h <<_ACEOF
>>> 18712    #define `$as_echo "HAVE_$ac_header" | $as_tr_cpp` 1
>>> 18713    _ACEOF
>>> 18714
>>> 18715    else
>>> 18716      with_libiptc="no (header file missing)"
>>> 18717    fi
>>>
>>> However there are 15 occurrences of the exact same text as line 18710 in the configure file so I am not convinced if that line is the root cause for the syntax error but some other earlier error that causes a knock-on effect.
>>>
>>> However, my knowledge of the coding syntax is definitely not enough to figure out what needs to be fixed/changed.
>>>
>>> As collectd is a very old version it is likely that some structural coding or syntax was fine in the past but now with the change from autoconf-2.71 to 2.72 it is no longer allowed, or is flagged up when in the past it was just ignored.
>>>
>>> There are quite a few changes in autoconf-2.72 with some being marked as backwards compatibilities. All of them except one say that existing configure scripts will continue working. The one that doesn't mention that is the following change:-
>>>
>>>    Configure scripts no longer support pre-1989 C compilers.
>>>    Specifically, compilers that *only* implement the original “K&R”
>>>    function definition syntax, and not the newer “prototyped” syntax,
>>>    will not be able to parse the test programs now emitted by
>>>    AC_CHECK_FUNC, AC_LANG_CALL, and similar macros. AC_PROG_CC still
>>>    accepts such compilers, but this may change in the near future.
>>>
>>>    This change was necessary in order to support the upcoming 2024
>>>    edition of the C standard (often referred to as “C23”), which will
>>>    officially remove the function declaration syntax used by
>>>    AC_CHECK_FUNC in Autoconf 2.71 and earlier.  We feel that support
>>>    for compilers that support only C 2024 is more useful, nowadays,
>>>    than support for compilers that don’t implement a core feature of
>>>    C 1989.
>>>
>>> However I am unable to figure out from this if the problem I am experiencing is related to this or not. I would not have thought so as I don't believe we are using a pre-1989 C compiler.
>>>
>>> Any ideas from anyone on how to fix this issue?
>>>
>>> There is nothing critical from a security or other vulnerability aspect in autoconf-2.72 but it would be nice to figure this out before we get to a stage where it has to be made to work.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Adolf.
>>>
>>
>