Re: PSA: Autoconf has risen from the dead

On 24.01.22 09:11, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 23.01.22 17:29, Tom Lane wrote:
>> While chasing something else, I was surprised to learn that the
>> Autoconf project has started to make releases again.  There are
>> 2.70 (2020-12-08) and 2.71 (2021-01-28) versions available at
>> https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/
> 
> I have patches ready for this at 
> https://github.com/petere/postgresql/tree/autoconf-updates.

I have updated this for 16devel and registered it in the commit fest.

To summarize:

- Autoconf 2.71 has been out for 1.5 years.
- It is available in many recently updated OSs.
- It allows us to throw away several workarounds.

Also:

- The created configure appears to be a bit faster, especially in the 
cached case.
- It supports checks for C11 features, which is something we might want 
to consider in the fullness of time.

Hence:

> Currently, I think early PG16 might be good time to do this update.