[erlang-questions] configure errors with R12B-0 on OS X Leopard

[Steve Vinoski]

On OS X Leopard, configure runs but issues a number of messages like this:

rm: conftest.dSYM: is a directory

This is apparently due to an autoconf issue on Leopard that's described here:

<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2007-11/msg00056.html>

I tried to manually apply the patches described there to the files
under /usr/share/autoconf/autoconf and then running autoreconf at the
top of the R12B-0 tree, but that caused the following warning
messages:

$ autoreconf --force
configure.in:35: warning: AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS: you should use literals
/var/tmp/autoconf/autoconf-14~76/SRC/autoconf/lib/autoconf/status.m4:929:
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS is expanded from...
configure.in:35: the top level
configure.in:35: warning: AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS: you should use literals
/var/tmp/autoconf/autoconf-14~76/SRC/autoconf/lib/autoconf/status.m4:929:
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS is expanded from...
configure.in:35: the top level
configure.in:35: warning: AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS: you should use literals
/var/tmp/autoconf/autoconf-14~76/SRC/autoconf/lib/autoconf/status.m4:929:
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS is expanded from...
configure.in:35: the top level
autoreconf: cannot create ${srcdir}/erts/autoconf: No such file or directory

I still saw some of the "rm: conftest.dSYM: is a directory" messages
even after patching and running autoreconf, maybe due to the above
warnings. The patch discussion in the URL above also refers to a
"fixed libtool" but I haven't found that yet -- maybe that's needed as
well.

These issues don't seem to prevent things from building correctly,
though. With or without the patches, the resulting erl executable at
least seems to start up and do simple things correctly.

Has anyone else seen similar problems? Is this worth worrying about,
and if so, what's the correct solution?

--steve