configure.ac:1: warning: AC_INIT: not a literal: m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX")

[juhp]

Describe the bug

I am trying to build nix on Fedora from source.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Download 2.5.1 (or 2.5.0 or 2.4) from github tag
2. Unpack tarball
3. run autoreconf or ./bootstrap.sh

+ ./bootstrap.sh
autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal --force 
configure.ac:1: warning: AC_INIT: not a literal: m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX")
configure.ac:1: warning: AC_INIT: not a literal: m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX")
autoreconf: configure.ac: tracing
configure.ac:1: warning: AC_INIT: not a literal: m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX")
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Libtool
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoconf --force
configure.ac:1: warning: AC_INIT: not a literal: m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX")
configure.ac:108: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
      See the Autoconf documentation.
autoreconf: /usr/bin/autoconf failed with exit status: 1

Expected behavior

configure script to be created without error.

Additional context

Call me old-fashioned, but I would really prefer to have a bootstrapped tarball as part of formal releases.

[uemax]

Well, I got same issue. Maybe you can simply modify the configure.ac file to avoid these errors.

Here is my solution:

Origin: AC_INIT([nix],[m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX")])

Modified: AC_INIT([nix], m4_esyscmd(bash -c "echo -n $(cat ./.version)$VERSION_SUFFIX"))

Just remove the square brackets, no errors again.

[weilbith]

@whoschen his comment already helped. Now I also get configure.ac:108: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR.

[Kha]

AFAIR these errors are usually triggered by missing build dependencies, e.g. libtool and/or m4

[juhp]

FWIW I have:

$ rpm -q autoconf automake libtool m4
autoconf-2.69-37.fc35.noarch
automake-1.16.2-5.fc35.noarch
libtool-2.4.6-42.fc35.x86_64
m4-1.4.19-2.fc35.x86_64

Though I got the same error with Fedora 36 autoconf-2.71.

[uemax]

Maybe you should try to install autoconf-archive and pkg-config, then re-clone
the repository and run commands listed in manual.

[dmacvicar]

Maybe you should try to install autoconf-archive and pkg-config, then re-clone
the repository and run commands listed in manual.

This solved (this) issue for me.

[juhp]

Thank you, seems I was missing autoconf-archive indeed.

Are the build requirements documented somewhere?
I do see autoconf-archive listed in release-common.nix

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[veprbl]

Still an issue.

[big-harry]

Still an issue on MacOS, even with m4 installed from brew and it being first in $PATH

[tfc]

I also ran into this problem. used nix develop in the repository on nixos. Would expect the project to be bundled with the right shell definition for building the project.

[robcohen]

Also got the same error, apt-get install autoconf-archive fixed it for me. OS is PopOS!

[ghost]

Use yay -S autoconf-archive in Arch-based distributions.