AC_HELP_STRING is obsolete in autoconf 2.70

[emilengler]

I did this

./buildconf

stdout, stderr

The stderr starts like this:

*** Do not use buildconf. Instead, just use: autoreconf -fi
configure.ac:45: warning: The macro `AC_HELP_STRING' is obsolete.
configure.ac:45: You should run autoupdate.
/usr/local/share/autoconf-2.70/autoconf/general.m4:203: AC_HELP_STRING is expanded from...
m4/curl-confopts.m4:173: CURL_CHECK_OPTION_DEBUG is expanded from...
configure.ac:45: the top level
configure.ac:46: warning: The macro `AC_HELP_STRING' is obsolete.
configure.ac:46: You should run autoupdate.
/usr/local/share/autoconf-2.70/autoconf/general.m4:203: AC_HELP_STRING is expanded from...
m4/curl-confopts.m4:228: CURL_CHECK_OPTION_OPTIMIZE is expanded from...
configure.ac:46: the top level
configure.ac:47: warning: The macro `AC_HELP_STRING' is obsolete.
configure.ac:47: You should run autoupdate.
/usr/local/share/autoconf-2.70/autoconf/general.m4:203: AC_HELP_STRING is expanded from...
m4/curl-confopts.m4:386: CURL_CHECK_OPTION_WARNINGS is expanded from...
configure.ac:47: the top level
configure.ac:48: warning: The macro `AC_HELP_STRING' is obsolete.
configure.ac:48: You should run autoupdate.
/usr/local/share/autoconf-2.70/autoconf/general.m4:203: AC_HELP_STRING is expanded from...
m4/curl-confopts.m4:417: CURL_CHECK_OPTION_WERROR is expanded from...
configure.ac:48: the top level
configure.ac:49: warning: The macro `AC_HELP_STRING' is obsolete.
configure.ac:49: You should run autoupdate.

I expected the following

No obsolete warnings

curl/libcurl version

fb98a43

operating system

OpenBSD-current, autoconf-2.70, automake-1.16

[bagder]

For the moment, I'd advice you to either stick with autoconf 2.69 or do as the warnings suggest: run autoupdate before you run autoconf.

2.70 is claimed to "not able to maintain perfect backward compatibility with existing Autoconf scripts" which of course is terribly annoying if we want to support both newer and older versions.

[bagder]

AC_HELP_STRING is now deprecated but can be replaced with AS_HELP_STRING - which seems to indicate that this dangerous-looking warning is completely uncalled for.

I guess we should provide a private AS_HELP_STRING macro for users of autoconf <= 2.69 and then do the replace.