Re: Git clone problem, missing "configure"

Jeff King· May 18, 2010, 20:01 UTC · lore

[cc +git@vger]

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 01:50:16PM -0700, Anthony Willard wrote:

> First off, I apologize if I have err'd in sending this directly to
> you.  Please forward to the responsible party.

Usually such things just go to the list (which is open to non-subscribers).

Show 6 quoted lines

> I did a "git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git" to a
> fresh working folder.
> 
> I attempted a "./configure" and it failed -- the file is missing;
> there is a "configure.ac".  I had a different clone from mid March
> that contained the file.

Right. We don't commit the configure script, as it is auto-generated. You need to either:

  1. Build from a release tarball which contains the "configure" script.

  2. Run "autoconf" to generate the configure script (obviously this
     implies that you have GNU autoconf installed).

  3. Just run "make" without configure. You may need to tweak some
     settings if you don't have some optional libraries installed. See the
     top of Makefile for details.

> I found the entry in the ".gitignore" file, a "git blame .gitignore" yields:
> ...
> c591d5f3 (Jeff King                   2009-10-26 21:10:24 -0400 191) /configure

That does blame to me, but if you "git show c591d5f3" you will see that I was just tweaking the entries, and the original "configure" line predates me. Try the "blame parent" option of "git gui blame" or "tig", and you will see that 5566771 (the original commit adding autoconf support) is actually responsible. So yes, it has been intentionally ignored since the beginning.

Hope that helps, -Peff

Jonathan Nieder· May 18, 2010, 21:53 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Hi,

Jeff King wrote:

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> Right. We don't commit the configure script, as it is auto-generated.
> You need to either:
> 
>   1. Build from a release tarball which contains the "configure" script.
> 
>   2. Run "autoconf" to generate the configure script (obviously this
>      implies that you have GNU autoconf installed).
> 
>   3. Just run "make" without configure. You may need to tweak some
>      settings if you don't have some optional libraries installed. See the
>      top of Makefile for details.

To add to this excellent reply, I should mention the

  make configure

command. This runs autoconf, also filling in the version number for correct ./configure --help output. :)

See the README and INSTALL files for more details.

Hope that helps, Jonathan