Subversion 1.9.5 --with-serf problem

[Gretton, Liam]

I've been packaging 1.9.5 for our environment, having missed a few versions since 1.8.13.

At some point since 1.8.13 the logic in the configure script for dealing with the --with-serf option has changed.

Now pkg-config overrides the use of the --with-serf value and this breaks the build if serf has been built in a sandbox (i.e. with the --install-sandbox option) as $serf_prefix within configure takes the value of the intended location of serf rather than where it's actually located.

It may be that there's a neat solution to this that I've not figured out, but if not it would be useful to revert that behaviour if possible and always honour the --with-serf value.

[Daniel Shahaf]

Post by Gretton, Liam
At some point since 1.8.13 the logic in the configure script for dealing with the --with-serf option has changed.
Now pkg-config overrides the use of the --with-serf value and this breaks the build if serf has been built in a sandbox (i.e. with the --install-sandbox option) as $serf_prefix within configure takes the value of the intended location of serf rather than where it's actually located.

Could you explain in more detail what use-case is broken? The configure
logic for serf (build/ac-macros/serf.m4), when --with-serf=foo is
passed, first tries foo/lib/pkgconfig/serf-1.pc and if that fails falls
back to looking for serf under foo without pkg-config. At no point does
it try the system pkg-config dirs.

Are you saying that you installed serf to a non-empty $(DESTDIR), and
then configure finds a *.pc file under that directory that points the
build system to the designated installation path (= the same path
without the $(DESTDIR) prefix)?

In that case, the following patch might work, although it needs
to be amended to explain the above.

The AC_MSG_CHECKING() could probably use better wording,
suggestions welcome.

Cheers,

Daniel

[[[
* build/ac-macros/serf.m4: An explicit prefix should take precedence over
pkg-config.

Found by: Liam Gretton
]]]

[[[
Index: build/ac-macros/serf.m4
===================================================================
--- build/ac-macros/serf.m4 (revision 1797913)
+++ build/ac-macros/serf.m4 (working copy)
@@ -70,12 +70,16 @@ AC_DEFUN(SVN_LIB_SERF,
])

if test "$serf_skip" = "no" ; then
- SVN_SERF_PKG_CONFIG()
- if test -n "$serf_prefix" && test "$serf_found" = "no" ; then
+ dnl Try the prefix if one was provided.
+ if test -n "$serf_prefix" ; then
SVN_SERF_PREFIX_CONFIG()
fi
+ dnl Either --with-serf wasn't passed, or was passed without argument.
+ if test "$serf_found" = "no" ; then
+ SVN_SERF_PKG_CONFIG()
+ fi

- AC_MSG_CHECKING([was serf enabled])
+ AC_MSG_CHECKING([whether to build libsvn_ra_serf])
if test "$serf_found" = "yes"; then
AC_MSG_RESULT([yes])
else
]]]

[Gretton, Liam]

Thanks very much for this patch, it does indeed fix the problem for me.

My use case is pretty much as you describe. I'm building a Subversion client RPM which includes serf.

During the %build phase serf is built as so:

scons PREFIX=%{prefix} install --install-sandbox=%{buildroot}

It therefore installs into %buildroot rather than %prefix, but the serf-1.pc file used by pkg-config will contain %prefix paths. When the subversion configure step runs I use --with-serf=%buildroot but because it now uses pkg-config in preference to the --with-serf value, %prefix is assumed and the include files etc don't get found.

--
Liam Gretton ***@le.ac.uk
Systems Specialist http://www.le.ac.uk/its
IT Services Tel: [phone]
University of Leicester, University Road
Leicestershire LE1 7RH, United Kingdom

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 07 June 2017 13:33
Subject: [PATCH] Re: Subversion 1.9.5 --with-serf problem
Could you explain in more detail what use-case is broken? The configure
logic for serf (build/ac-macros/serf.m4), when --with-serf=foo is
passed, first tries foo/lib/pkgconfig/serf-1.pc and if that fails falls
back to looking for serf under foo without pkg-config. At no point does
it try the system pkg-config dirs.
Are you saying that you installed serf to a non-empty $(DESTDIR), and
then configure finds a *.pc file under that directory that points the
build system to the designated installation path (= the same path
without the $(DESTDIR) prefix)?
In that case, the following patch might work, although it needs
to be amended to explain the above.
The AC_MSG_CHECKING() could probab

[Andreas Stieger]

Post by Gretton, Liam
Thanks very much for this patch, it does indeed fix the problem for me.
My use case is pretty much as you describe.
I'm building a Subversion client RPM which includes serf.
scons PREFIX=%{prefix} install --install-sandbox=%{buildroot}
It therefore installs into %buildroot rather than %prefix, but the serf-1.pc
file used by pkg-config will contain %prefix paths. When the subversion
configure step runs I use --with-serf=%buildroot but because it now uses
pkg-config in preference to the --with-serf value, %prefix is assumed and the
include files etc don't get found.

You are building two packages in one. "scons PREFIX=%{prefix} install --install-sandbox=%{buildroot}" assumes that you will extract the files installed to %{buildroot} to make a serf rpm, then use the -devel to build the subversion one (at which point all paths with check out).

For reference:
https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/openSUSE:Factory/libserf/libserf.spec
https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/openSUSE:Factory/subversion/subversion.spec

If you really want to use the serf built in the combined package, point --with-serf= to the serf (source) build tree, not the (install) build root.

Andreas