messed up my system
 

while I try to rebuild hexchat from source in -current, I'm stuck with the following message:
--------------------------
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
configure.ac:19: error: macro AX_APPEND_COMPILE_FLAGS is not defined. Is autoconf-archive installed?
configure.ac:17: HEX_CHECK_MACRO is expanded from...
configure.ac:19: the top level
autom4te: /tools/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal-1.15: error: echo failed with exit status: 1
make: *** [Makefile:464: aclocal.m4] Error 1
--------------------------
Any idea?

Nope, you didn't mess up your system. For now, in -current, hexchat won't build.

Upstream has addressed the issue in git by switching from autotools to Meson. Yay, yet another build system!

Sorry, but I think that is not the case.
To be clear, I have two systems on two different machines (one is a laptop), which are both kept at current level. On one, it builds normally and on the other one it fails with the previous message.

Yeah, Yay ( :) Yikes :) ) ...

I had to look it up on google: wtf is the Meson build System ?

And google sent me to: The Meson Build system

Looks like there is already a Meson.SlackBuild on SBo but it requires Python 3 and ninja ( :) Yikes again :) )

I am aware of Python 3 but I had to ask google: wtf is the ninja build system ?

And google sent me here: Ninja

And again, there is a ninja.SlackBuild on SBo ...

Thanks for making me look, Pat !

I love this site ( LQ ) ! Seems I am always learning something every time I look.

-- kjh

not sure if Meson is worth to have a look, I think (and hope) it will have to go the same way like scons and become irrelevant asap.

to me it seems that those yabs, like scons and now Meson, come from python educated developers that have to compile something and instead of reading an existing documentation they re-invent a build system. Nothing new, with must searching that one unique feature, and therefore throw a new, user friendly dsl on the market.
In case of Meson the unique feature shall be Ninja, beside the user friendly DSL, what CMake supports since ever, therefore ninja is the reason that Meson can not glob files from a directory, because it has to be fast, ignoring (not knowing) the fact that other build system can do that and are faster.

I think, there's a great misunderstanding:

- I don't try to build hexchat current from github where the new building system is meson, I'm aware of it.
- I just try to understand what package can have messed up my system, so that, I'm able to re-"SlackBuild" hexchat-2.12.4 on one system and not on the other one.

Sorry for not being clear enough, english and its subtilities is still a foreign language for me.

nobodino --

Sorry about hijacking your thread ...

This line from your OP:
MAY indicate a locale problem ???

What does locale show on either system ?

EDIT found this site:

drboblog - gnome-common deprecation, round 2

Could your issue be gnome-common differences between the two systems ?

-- kjh

This is mine ( :) after setting and exporting LC_ALL=C as the gods intended :) )

here is my"locale":
-------------------------
root@darkstar-ASL:/slacksrc/xap/hexchat# locale
LANG=fr_FR.UTF8
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_NUMERIC="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_TIME="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_MONETARY="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_MESSAGES="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_PAPER="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_NAME="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_ADDRESS="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_TELEPHONE="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="fr_FR.UTF8"
LC_ALL=
----------------------------

nobodino --

Yeah, I think your locale may be a rabbit hole you need not explore ...

But does only one of the systems have gnome-common installed ?

Maybe this applies ?

drboblog - gnome-common deprecation, round 2

Note the For Further Discussion link near the bottom of that page ...

-- kjh

meson is the new thing I keep seeing many of the modern devs rant about, the ones that never learned how to write a Makefile and have the constant need to reinvent the wheel to replace still working older technologies they find to be too old. That said its being adapted by many projects now and it may become an unfortunate reality. Lot of developers couldn't give a shit about anything other than inherently broken distros like ubuntu or fedora, certainly not about slackware...

correction:
-hexchat-2.12.4 builds ok on x86, but not on x86_64

Finally, I solved the problem by installing autoconf-archive-20170321 with "autoconf-archive.SlackBuild" from phantomX, and changed the version.
Everything builds cleanly now.

Yeah, I was looking into meson because it is a requirement for newer versions of pitivi (a video editor -- this reminds me, I need to submit an updated SlackBuild that actually compiles it instead of repackaging a binary). So I got a SlackBuild ready so I could try and build the newer version of pitivi. Unfortunately, I found I couldn't build the newer version of pitivi because it requires a newer gstreamer than what's provided in 14.2. But I figured since I already prepped the meson SlackBuild, that I might as well go ahead and submit it. I'm not sure if any other packages on SBo use it, but at least I'll be ready to build a newer version of pitivi once -current is released as the next stable :)