Re: gdb and ancient GNU autotools

Sam James via Gdb
2024-02-24T16:54:01Z

Tomasz Kłoczko via Gdb <gdb@sourceware.org> writes:

> Hi,
>
> In gdb source tree in config/override.m4 is hardcoded autoconf version
>
> m4_if(m4_defn([m4_PACKAGE_VERSION]), [2.64],
>
> That version has been released almost SIXTEEN YEARS AGO !!!
> https://savannah.gnu.org/news/?id=5867

That specific line is adding a workaround for a bug in GNU Autoconf
2.64. It does not require 2.64.

However, yes, _GCC_AUTOCONF_VERSION is indeed later set to 2.69 and
will bail if *that* version isn't used. It would be worth updating
to autoconf-2.72 but it needs to be coordinated across binutils, gdb,
and gcc.

>
> Literally NONE Linux distribution currently provides that version so in
> case of any necessity to fix something in autoconf it is NOT POSSIBLE to
> regenerate GNU autotools files.
>

This is wrong, per above.

> The same situation is with binutils ang gcc.

Yes, they share the toplevel build system.