Calling autoconf in a spec.

[Tom Lane]

Ankur Sinha <sanjay.ankur at gmail.com> writes:
> I need help with a package[0] that needs autoconf to be called before
> the build can begin. I've read this draft which addresses the issue[1].
> I used the second solution which says:

> "When manual modification of configure or Makefile.in for the purpose of
> generating a patch is impractical, packagers can create a patch by
> regenerating configure and/or Makefile.in to use as input to diff. In
> general, autoreconf should not be used for this purpose because it will
> regenerate files that probably don't need to be regenerated. "

> This fixed the build on my F15, but didn't work on F14. How should I go
> about handling this please? Should I just call autoconf in the spec and
> be done with it?

Sure.  As pointed out on the wiki page, that policy is controversial;
you should not feel bound by it.  At the same time you should realize
why it's there: the concern is that when autoconf changes versions,
that could unexpectedly break your package.  Personally I don't think
that's significantly more likely than changes in any other build tool
breaking your package, but YMMV.

FWIW, I used to run autoconf during the builds of both the postgresql
and mysql packages for many years.  That eventually became unnecessary
in both cases, but I don't recall that autoconf changes ever caused me
any trouble.  (gcc, on the other hand, ...)

			regards, tom lane