Hi Matthieu, Sébastien, sorry for the delay. On 10/20/2012 12:31 PM, Matthieu Baerts wrote: > Hello > > 20/10/2012 00:11 +0200, Sébastien Wilmet wrote: >> Hello, >> >> In the AM_PROG_VALAC macro, when the optional parameter specifying the >> minimum release number is not provided, and if the Vala compiler is not >> found, then there is a _warning_ message. >> >> On the other hand, when the version number is specified, when the Vala >> compiler is too old, there is an _error_ message. >> >> This error message is problematic, because for a tarball, the Vala >> compiler is not required: the generated C code is included in the >> tarball. So if a user wants to compile the software, he shouldn't need >> the valac program. >> >> So the AC_MSG_ERROR should be modified as a AC_MSG_WARN. > > I confirm that I had this problem with LaTeXila: I had a too old version > of Vala and I was not able to compile LaTeXila except if > '/usr/bin/valac' was removed/renamed. > > This is how this bug has been fixed in LaTeXila: > https://github.com/swilmet/latexila/commit/993b073c71f094ca5c15cb2a44e69399176b882a > (for those who wants a workaround ;) ) > > Note that if a warning message is produced when a too old version is > detected, 'VALAC' variable has to be unset in vala.m4 > > > This bug should be fixed with the attached patch :) > > > Thank you, > > Matt > I agree the behaviour you want is better and more sensible than the current one. In fact, it mimics the behaviour of a macro like AC_PROG_YACC, which doesn't abort configure if a bison/yacc program is not found in PATH (which makes perfect sense, since Automake distributes the bison-generated C sources, exactly to ensure the final user doesn't need to have a proper bison/yacc program himself).
However, I'm not going to apply your patch right away because first I'd like to work on this other enhancement: <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2012-09/msg00012.html> Once that is done (might be a few days), I will get back to your patch. I definitely plan to have it committed (in one form or another) before releasing Automake 1.12.5. Thanks, Stefano
