[GHC] #2020: configure script shipped with ghc is built by broken version of autoconf

[GHC]

#2020: configure script shipped with ghc is built by broken version of autoconf
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    Reporter:  bos       |       Owner:         
        Type:  bug       |      Status:  new    
    Priority:  normal    |   Milestone:         
   Component:  Compiler  |     Version:  6.8.2  
    Severity:  normal    |    Keywords:         
  Difficulty:  Unknown   |    Testcase:         
Architecture:  Unknown   |          Os:  Unknown
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 I've been looking into a downstream packaging problem:

 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=237398

 The problem in question being that package.conf contains incorrect paths
 to haddock directories.

 I tried to address this problem in the obvious way.  Unfortunately, when I
 pass --docdir to the configure script that ships with GHC 6.8.1 and 6.8.2,
 an option that configure claims it supports, I get an error:

 ghc-6.8.2 $ ./configure --docdir=/tmp
 configure: error: unrecognized option: --docdir=/tmp
 Try `./configure --help' for more information.

 This is due to configure being built by autoconf 2.59.  If I regenerate
 the configure script using autoconf 2.61, it parses the --docdir argument
 correctly.

 I've got a temporary workaround in the Fedora packaging spec that runs
 autoreconf before configure, but it would be best if this were addressed
 in GHC itself.

 Please upgrade the version of autoconf that you use prior to the next
 release.

 Thanks!

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/2020>
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