[smpeg] autogen.sh/autoreconf from SVN fails when libsdl2 is not installed

[John Spencer]

using "trunk" on a box with SDL 1.2 installed, but no SDL 2:

git-mirror/smpeg[master]$ autoreconf -i
aclocal: warning: autoconf input should be named 'configure.ac', not
'configure.in'
/share/aclocal/nspr.m4:8: warning: underquoted definition of AM_PATH_NSPR
/share/aclocal/nspr.m4:8:   run info Automake 'Extending aclocal'
/share/aclocal/nspr.m4:8:   or see
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Extending-aclocal
configure.in:136: warning: macro 'AM_PATH_SDL2' not found in library
libtoolize: putting auxiliary files in `.'.
libtoolize: copying file `./ltmain.sh'
libtoolize: Consider adding `AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])' to configure.in and
libtoolize: rerunning libtoolize, to keep the correct libtool macros
in-tree.
libtoolize: Consider adding `-I m4' to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in Makefile.am.
aclocal: warning: autoconf input should be named 'configure.ac', not
'configure.in'
/share/aclocal/nspr.m4:8: warning: underquoted definition of AM_PATH_NSPR
/share/aclocal/nspr.m4:8:   run info Automake 'Extending aclocal'
/share/aclocal/nspr.m4:8:   or see
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Extending-aclocal
configure.in:136: warning: macro 'AM_PATH_SDL2' not found in library
configure.in:62: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_TYPE_SOCKLEN_T
       If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
       See the Autoconf documentation.
configure.in:136: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_PATH_SDL2
autoreconf: /bin/autoconf failed with exit status: 1


means it's impossible for me to even create my "personal tarball" for
distribution (it's not planned to port/add SDL2).
(as using the latest tarball release from 10 years ago would require me
to maintain a huge set of patches, like for example
https://github.com/PhantomX/slackbuilds/tree/master/sdl/smpeg/patches )

I wonder what the point of all that external m4 junk is anyway.
all these proprietary vendor-specific macros cause nothing but pain
because like those idiotic package-specific pkg-config replacements
(think pcre-config, libmikmod-config, etc) they're written by amateurs
who never heard about cross-compilation sysroots, non-standard prefixes 
or even DESTDIR; and unlike autoconf-built-in macros they're not going 
to get updated/bugfixed when autoconf is improved.

the proper way to check for SDL2 is this:

$(CC) main.o -lSDL2 $(LDFLAGS)

this will succeed when libSDL2 is installed in the toolchain's default
library path (regardless of whether its a crosscompiler or not) or if
the user added his non-standard library-path to LDFLAGS as he ought to do.

well, i guess to get smpeg bundled for my distro there's not much choice
left than to bite the bullet and write a makefile from scratch.

since you guys are unwilling to come up with a release, why dont you 
just stop development completely instead of pretending that it's 
maintained ?
that way smpeg would be recognized as abandoned and stuff using it would
be forced to switch to something else that's actually maintained.


--JS