Re: [gtk-list] strange automake configure problem

[Tom Tromey <tromey creche cygnus com>]

Nuke> ./configure: line 2001: syntax error near unexpected token
Nuke> `AM_PATH_GTK(,,{'

If configure tries to execute an "AM_" or "AC_" command, then that
means autoconf couldn't find the appropriate m4 macro to expand.
(autoconf will complain about missing AC_ macros, but not missing AM_
ones.)

For AM_ macros, this typically means that "aclocal" couldn't find the
macro to put it into configure.in.  Now, ordinarily aclocal will
complain about this, but it turns out that there is a bug in the
current aclocal (fixed in my tree, which is no consolation to you) so
that it won't print this error in some situations.  Gnome's use of the
AM_PATH_GTK macro triggers this bug.


This failure occurs because all .m4 files installed by programs other
than automake must end up in the same directory as the m4 files
installed by automake.  If you install different things with different
'--prefix'es, then you'll run into this problem.

The fix is to make a symlink from aclocal's preferred directory to
wherever it is installed in your Gtk tree.  Then start over with
autogen.sh.


aclocal finds its macros in $datadir/aclocal/.  So if you installed
with --prefix=/usr/local, that would be /usr/local/share/aclocal.


I agree that this situation sucks.  Suggestions for how it could be
improved are welcome.

Tom