PKG_CHECK_VAR macro fails

[junka]

Since 0.23.13, PKG_CHECK_VAR was introduced, but it fails on most older os version.
Do you plan to consider adding a PKG_CHECK_VAR.m4 to make the source compatible with older os.

[ueno]

I doubt it would be useful because:

• normal users are recommended to build from the released tarballs which doesn't need the macro (because it's inlined in aclocal.m4)
• users bootstrapping from the git wouldn't mind copying the latest pkg.m4 from the upstream

So I would rather add something like:

m4_ifdef([PKG_PREREQ], [PKG_PREREQ(0.29)], [
  [m4_fatal([pkg.m4 is too old; put the latest version in build/m4])])

[Mythracis]

Excuse me. I'm new to autoconf, but where can I copy the latest pkg.m4?
I tried copying this one (https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/blob/master/pkg.m4) to p11-kit/build/m4 and then run
./autogen.sh --prefix=$HOME
but I still got
configure.ac:35: error: pkg.m4 is too old; copy the latest version in build/m4

Besides, I actually tried the released tarballs (https://github.com/p11-glue/p11-kit/releases/download/0.25.0/p11-kit-0.25.0.tar.xz) as you recommend to normal users. I managed to get it work, but still feel like to learn about pkg.m4. Thank you!

(For released tarball I did:
./configure --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu CFLAGS=-m32 CXXFLAGS=-m32 LDFLAGS=-m32 bashcompdir=$HOME/bash-completion/completion --prefix=$HOME make make install

[ueno]

https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/blob/master/pkg.m4 seems like the canonical one.

I just tried to reproduce your problem by decreasing the PKG_MACROS_VERSION in /usr/share/aclocal/pkg.m4 and then copying the latest pkg.m4 in build/m4, but it worked as expected. It would be helpful if you could provide the complete log of autogen.sh.

[Mythracis]

Thanks! @ueno

I downloaded pkg.m4
cd build/m4/
wget https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/blob/master/pkg.m4
ls
. .. build-to-host.m4 .empty gettext.m4 host-cpu-c-abi.m4 iconv.m4 intlmacosx.m4 ld-version-script.m4 lib-ld.m4 lib-link.m4 lib-prefix.m4 nls.m4 pkg.m4 po.m4 progtest.m4

Then I ran
cd ../../
./autogen.sh --prefix=$HOME/local64 > autogen.log 2&1
cat autogen.log
autopoint: using AM_GNU_GETTEXT_REQUIRE_VERSION instead of AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION

cat autogen.err
+ autoreconf --force --install --verbose
autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: running: autopoint --force
autoreconf: running: aclocal -I <$HOME>/local64/share/aclocal/ --force -I build/m4
configure.ac:35: error: pkg.m4 is too old; copy the latest version in build/m4
configure.ac:35: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal: error: echo failed with exit status: 1
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 1

[ueno]

autoreconf: running: aclocal -I <$HOME>/local64/share/aclocal/ --force -I build/m4

This line is apparently causing the issue, though I'm not sure why this is happening. On my environment it is autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I build/m4.

Is your autotools installation pristine?

I guess a workaround would be to directly call autoreconf instead of the autogen.sh script, with -B.

[Mythracis]

Sorry, aclocal -I <$HOME>/local64/share/aclocal/ is from my .bashrc for some other package. If I remove that I get
autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I build/m4
configure.ac:35: error: pkg.m4 is too old; copy the latest version in build/m4

I tried direct autoreconf
autoreconf --install --force --prepend-include=/mnt/mbi/home/mbiwh/wine_lib_src/p11-kit/build/m4
autopoint: using AM_GNU_GETTEXT_REQUIRE_VERSION instead of AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION
configure.ac:35: error: pkg.m4 is too old; copy the latest version in build/m4
configure.ac:35: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal: error: echo failed with exit status: 1
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 1

Is that how -B is supposed to be used?