[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 20253] A correct Webkit build requires flex 2.5.33 but autotools build doesn't check for it

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20253





------- Comment #10 from zuh at iki.fi  2008-08-03 02:49 PDT -------
(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > (In reply to comment #3)
> > > Why can't the "PKG_CHECK_MODULES" macro be used as is done elsewhere in
> > > configure.ac?
> > 
> > That macro requires the checked software to install a .pc file for pkg-config
> > to find, and that practice is not too widespread outside the
> > GNOME/freedesktop.org circles... Which is a bit unfortunate since it would make
> > life so much simpler.
> 
> That means that none of the other version checks in the current configure.ac
> file work for your build system?!

No no, it just means that flex doesn't install a .pc file so pkg-config cannot
be used to detect it. Things like GStreamer and curl do install a .pc file so
they can.

> I'd rather see the more complex test than the simple one, given the choice.  Is
> there a "version check macro" available that is smart enough to compare
> multi-dot version numbers (like 2.4 <= 2.5.33 <= 2.6) rather than rolling our
> own regular expressions?

That's a very good question, and the answer is yes. Not in autoconf itself
though, but in the autoconf macro archive there's a macro called
AX_COMPARE_VERSION that does just that:

  http://autoconf-archive.cryp.to/ax_compare_version.html

So adding this macro to acinclude.m4 (which is the proper way to include extra
macros) takes us down to just one sed call (to extract the version string) and
the check itself. Naturally, the macro is still a bunch of sed magic, but at
least it's not in configure.ac anymore...

I'll cook up a patch for that too.


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