Re: Migrate to autoconf 2.72?

On Fri, Nov 28, 2025 at 9:35 AM Chao Li <li(dot)evan(dot)chao(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> Hi Hackers,
>
> I wanted to add “—enable-shadows-warning” to “./configure”, I updated configure.ac, then installed autoconf on my MacBook, then when I tried to run autoconf, I got an error:
>
> ```
> % autoconf
> configure.ac:22: error: Autoconf version 2.69 is required.
> Untested combinations of 'autoconf' and PostgreSQL versions are not
> recommended. You can remove the check from 'configure.ac' but it is then
> your responsibility whether the result works or not.
> configure.ac:22: the top level
> autom4te: error: /opt/homebrew/opt/m4/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
> ```
>
> I saw my newly installed autoconf is version 2.72. Then I tried to install autoconf 2.69, it says 2.69 is dead now:
> ```
> ==> Fetching downloads for: autoconf(at)2(dot)69
> Error: autoconf(at)2(dot)69 has been disabled because it is a versioned formula! It was disabled on 2024-12-14.
> ```

Outside the main $thread question or updating on MacOS, I usually just
grab https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.69.tar.gz and
./configure && make install and it should work (and it's really tiny
and compiles in like 500ms).

-J.