[Python-Dev] New autoconf in use!

[Guido van Rossum]

I'm moving this thread from python-checkins to -dev, since it's
relevant to committers.

[Guido]
> > As long as it fails cleanly with older versions of autoconf, I'm all
> > for using autoconf 2.53 now.

[Martin]
> Done. At the moment, AC_PREREQ is 2.50, so 2.13 will fail. Even the
> changes between 2.52 and 2.53 in the generated configure are huge, so
> 2.53 should be the "official" version.
> 
> This could be done in two ways:
> - allow people to continue to use, say, 2.52, and just ask that 2.53
>   is used when committing; or
> - bump AC_PREREQ to 2.53; 2.52 (and earlier) will then refuse to work.
> It's your choice.

Might as well require 2.53.  Installing autoconf isn't exactly hard.

> The other issue is caching: autoconf 2.50 will, by default, not
> generate a config.cache, since that has caused too many problems.
> Again, two options:
> - leave it as-is, and suggest that people who want caching use the -C
>   option of configure (new in 2.5x), or
> - hack configure to create a cache file by default (I'm not sure how
>   to do this)

Leave it as it is unless there are many complaints.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)