Node:AC_LIBOBJ vs. LIBOBJS, Previous:Hosts and Cross-Compilation, Up:Autoconf 2.13



AC_LIBOBJ vs. LIBOBJS

Up to Autoconf 2.13, the replacement of functions was triggered via the variable LIBOBJS. Since Autoconf 2.50, the macro AC_LIBOBJ should be used instead (see Generic Functions). Starting at Autoconf 2.53, the use of LIBOBJS is an error.

This change is mandated by the unification of the GNU Build System components. In particular, the various fragile techniques used to parse a configure.ac are all replaced with the use of traces. As a consequence, any action must be traceable, which obsoletes critical variable assignments. Fortunately, LIBOBJS was the only problem.

At the time this documentation is written, Automake does not rely on traces yet, but this is planed for a near future. Nevertheless, to ease the transition, and to guarantee this future Automake release will be able to use Autoconf 2.53, using LIBOBJS directly will make autoconf fail. But note that the output, configure, is correct and fully functional: you have some delay to adjust your source.

There are two typical uses of LIBOBJS: asking for a replacement function, and adjusting LIBOBJS for Automake and/or Libtool.

As for function replacement, the fix is immediate: use AC_LIBOBJ. For instance:

LIBOBJS="$LIBOBJS fnmatch.o"
LIBOBJS="$LIBOBJS malloc.$ac_objext"

should be replaced with:

AC_LIBOBJ([fnmatch])
AC_LIBOBJ([malloc])

When asked for automatic de-ANSI-fication, Automake needs LIBOBJS'ed filenames to have $U appended to the base names. Libtool requires the definition of LTLIBOBJS, which suffixes are mapped to .lo. Although Autoconf provides them with means to free the user to do that by herself, by the time of this writing, none do. Therefore, it is common to see configure.ac end with:

# This is necessary so that .o files in LIBOBJS are also built via
# the ANSI2KNR-filtering rules.
LIBOBJS=`echo "$LIBOBJS" | sed 's/\.o /\$U.o /g;s/\.o$/\$U.o/'`
LTLIBOBJS=`echo "$LIBOBJS" | sed 's/\.o/\.lo/g'`
AC_SUBST(LTLIBOBJS)

First, note that this code is wrong, because .o is not the only possible extension1! Because the token LIBOBJS is now forbidden, you will have to replace this snippet with:

# This is necessary so that .o files in LIBOBJS are also built via
# the ANSI2KNR-filtering rules.
LIB@&t@OBJS=`echo "$LIB@&t@OBJS" |
             sed 's,\.[[^.]]* ,$U&,g;s,\.[[^.]]*$,$U&,'`
LTLIBOBJS=`echo "$LIB@&t@OBJS" |
           sed 's,\.[[^.]]* ,.lo ,g;s,\.[[^.]]*$,.lo,'`
AC_SUBST(LTLIBOBJS)

Unfortunately, autoupdate cannot help here, since... this is not a macro! Of course, first make sure your release of Automake and/or Libtool still requires these.


Footnotes

  1. Yet another reason why assigning LIBOBJS directly is discouraged.