[php-maint] Bug#542088: Bug#542906: current version of autoconf makes php5 FTBFS

[Raphael Geissert]

forcemerge 542088 542906
thanks

Hi,

On Saturday 22 August 2009 14:55:27 Russ Allbery wrote:
> tags 542906 patch
> thanks
>
> Andreas Barth <aba at not.so.argh.org> writes:
> > php5 started to FTBFS with the versions of autoconf in testing and
> > unstable. It builds correctly with the version of autoconf in stable.
> >
> > Please see
> > https://buildd.debian.org/fetch.cgi?&pkg=php5&ver=5.2.10.dfsg.1-2%2Bb1&ar
> >ch=i386&stamp=1250588329&file=log for the full buildlog.
> >
> > As I don't know if this is improper usage on side of php, or if autoconf
> > broke expected functionality here, I'm reporting against both packages.


Thanks, I'm aware of that, I had already noticed it and it was later reported 
as #542088 (and I didn't consider using autoconf2.13 a fix so I didn't use 
it).

>
> Definitely PHP's fault.  It's using divert in its Autoconf scripts and
> clobbering all over the diversions used by Autoconf, resulting in a
> configure script with huge hunks missing.  divert is a low-level M4
> feature, and it's not safe (and has never really been safe) to play with
> them behind Autoconf's back.
>
> See the Autoconf manual:
[...]
>
> Furthermore, the diversions don't seem to be doing anything for PHP
> anyway.  The following patch, which just comments out all the diversions
> and moves an include below AC_INIT (this may not be needed, but it's good
> form), seems to fix the problem.

That was exactly what I was trying to find out. A proposed patch[1] was sent 
to the other report which changed the numbers used on the diversion macros.

[1]http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=542088#18

After comparing the generated configure files the only differences I see are 
the order of some tests and some comments from m4sugar (when using the patch 
from [1]). So it does look like the diversion calls are useless.

Thanks both for your patches, I'll finish the upload I previously prepared.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphael Geissert - Debian Developer
www.debian.org - get.debian.net