Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 07:42:40 -0800 From: Ade Lovett <ade@freebsd.org> To: ports@freebsd.org Cc: Ade Lovett <ade@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Autotools New World Order Message-ID: <F39F1871-8698-42C2-9B28-5D6F1FC7165C@freebsd.org>
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As some of you may have noticed, a tree-wide commit went in a short
while back, radically changing the mechanisms for invoking the GNU
autotools (automake, autoconf, libtool, et al) within the context of
building a FreeBSD port.
Without getting into the more religious issues, simply stated there
is a requirement for a number of different versions of each autotool
to co-exist on a machine in order to build various different ports.
Previously, this required a myriad of different variables to be set,
depending on the tool (or tools) that were required to build a port.
These variables have now been collapsed into a single Makefile
construct of the form:
USE_AUTOTOOLS= <tool>:<version>[:<operation>] ...
where:
<tool> can be one of 'libtool', 'libltdl', 'autoconf', 'autoheader',
'automake' and 'aclocal',
<version> specifies the particular tool revision to be used, and
<operation> is an optional extension to modify how the tool is used.
It cannot be stressed highly enough that these constructs, and the
versioned autotools ports they use, are for use ONLY in building
other ports. For cross-development work, the devel/gnu-
{automake,autoconf,libtool} ports should be used, such as within an
IDE. devel/anjuta and devel/kdevelop (GNOME and KDE respectively)
are good examples of how to achieve this.
Here's a simple conversion table from old to new:
USE_LIBTOOL_VER=13 libtool:13
USE_INC_LIBTOOL_VER=15 libtool:15:inc
WANT_LIBTOOL_VER=15 libtool:15:env
USE_LIBLTDL=YES libltdl:15
USE_AUTOCONF_VER=213 autoconf:213
WANT_AUTOCONF_VER=259 autoconf:259:env
USE_AUTOHEADER_VER=253 autoheader:253 (implies autoconf:253)
USE_AUTOMAKE_VER=14 automake:14
WANT_AUTOMAKE_VER=15 automake:15:env
USE_ACLOCAL_VER=19 aclocal:19 (implies automake:19)
Note that the other variables associated with autotools -
AUTOMAKE_ARGS, ACLOCAL_ARGS, AUTOCONF_ARGS, AUTOHEADER_ARGS,
LIBTOOLFLAGS and LIBTOOLFILES are unchanged. Most ports do not need
to concern themselves with these.
Every effort has been made to create a new autotools usage method
which is both extensible not only in terms of easily adding new
versions if a drop-in upgrade is not possible, but also, through the
<operation> keyword, of adding further tweaks with the minimum of fuss.
By means of an example, compare the following sets of constructs,
which says that a port wants the automake 1.9.x environment, needs to
run both autoconf 2.53 and the associated autoheader as well as
needing libtool 1.3.5 (with the second type of configure file
patching), and the libltdl library.
Previously, this would have been done with:
WANT_AUTOMAKE_VER= 19
USE_AUTOCONF_VER= 253
USE_AUTOHEADER_VER= 253
USE_INC_LIBTOOL_VER= 13
USE_LIBLTDL= YES
Now, we can reduce this to:
USE_AUTOTOOLS= automake:19:env autoheader:253 libtool:13:inc libltdl:15
which vastly improves Makefile readability, whilst leaving the heavy
lifting where it should be, in the infrastructural background,
allowing for considerably easier implementation of ports that require
the use of one or more autotools.
The Porters Handbook is in the process of being updated with new text
to reflect the changes (hi pav!).
-aDe
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