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newlineconfigureautotoolsautoconfautomake

configure.ac with CRLF line endings

If an Autotools project is checked out on Windows using MSys Git (as opposed to Cygwin Git), line endings of the checked-out files will have Windows-native CRLF style (unless configured otherwise in the global ~/.gitconfig). There're, of course, multiple other ways to obtain the configure.ac project file with CRLF line endings.

autoreconf can consume such a file and silently produce the executable configure script, which, when executed, will produce an obscure error message and exit with code 1:

.in'ig.status: error: cannot find input file: `

A capable difftool will show there're regular LF endings mixed with CRLF's in the generated configure script:

enter image description here

Is it possible to somehow tell autoreconf (either via command-line switches or via AC_* m4 macros) to automatically convert CRLF to LF when reading its input?

Solution

  • Is it possible to somehow tell autoreconf (either via command-line switches or via AC_* m4 macros) to automatically convert CRLF to LF when reading its input?

    autoreconf's --help text or manual page would have shown you that no, it does not offer any such command-line option.

    There also is no standard Autoconf macro that would serve the purpose (check its manual if you want to confirm), nor do I know or see a way that GNU m4 can be directly instructed to perform the requested conversion. (But perhaps there's an m4 wizard around somewhere who could provide a suitable spell.)