This line for example AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([SOME_MACRO_NAME], "$SOME_VALUE", [some comment]) generates printf "%s\n" "#define SOME_MACRO_NAME \"$SOME_VALUE\"" >>confdefs.h as a line in configure. And something like the following in config.h after configure is run: /* some comment */ #define SOME_MACRO_NAME "" How would I make it produce the following instead? /* some comment */ #ifndef SOME_MACRO_NAME #define SOME_MACRO_NAME "" #endif Surely I can add some printf lines manually or create a custom function but shouldn't there be an idiomatic way to do this already? Either methods I mentioned are hackish either way as I'm asserting confdefs.h is the file being temporarily produced. I'm already seeing people would be suggesting testing $SOME_VALUE maybe through AS_IF or m4_if (or any of their applicable variants) instead but that's a varying use case. I might want to have the variable overridable through autoreconf, through ./configure or through CFLAGS with the -D option. It depends. But right now I just want the answer for this. Also somebody might suggest using a template. Please, please no.

I have an m4 template where I want to insert more than one line. In my template I have the placeholder __CODE__. Now I want to call m4 with something like

m4 -D__CODE__="foo\nbar" template.m4

but in the output I get

foo\nbar

in place of __CODE__. Any ideas how this could be done?

I would like to use m4 interactively as a preprocessor for bc. My immediate use case is to add an include capability to bc, but I can foresee other uses in the future. But there is a problem. Here is an example using bc on its own:

`
$ bc
bc 1.07.1
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
3+7
10
sqrt(12345)
111
quit
$

` And here is the same example using m4 interactively:

`
$ m4 -iP - | bc
3+7
10
sqrt(12345)
111
quit

$

` There are two differences. First, the m4 version suppresses the banner. Second, the m4 version doesn't execute quit immediately, but instead requires the enter key to be pressed an additional time before it executes the quit. Why do these things occur? How can I make the m4 version work the same way as the bc version?

I am trying to install GNU M4 on my Chromebook using the 1.4.17 tarball, but when I run ./configure and thenmake I get an error related to aclocal, which is apparently part of the GNU Automake package. The exact error I get is WARNING: 'aclocal-1.14' is missing on your system. You should only need it if you modified 'acinclude.m4' or 'configure.ac' or m4 files included by 'configure.ac'. The 'aclocal' program is part of the GNU Automake package: It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run: make: *** [aclocal.m4] Error 127 I know the first part is only a warning, but the name indicates that the error is related. I also tried to create an empty file for aclocal.m4, and I get a different message: a warning about automake-1.14 missing and make: *** [Makefile.in] Error 1 Unfortunately, according to the official page , Automake requires Autoconf, which in turn requires M4 . What can I do to install M4 and avoid this problem?

My goal is to create a m4 macro, that reads a value from a file (BUILD), increases it and then saves the output into the file. I came up with the following solution (BUILD.m4):

define(__buildnumber__',esyscmd(cat BUILD)')dnl
define(`counter',__buildnumber__)dnl
popdef(__buildnumber__)dnl
define(count',define(`counter',eval(counter+1))counter')dnl
count dnl

When BUILD contains 3 then running m4 BUILD.m4 outputs 4. Which is great! However, when I call it like this m4 BUILD.m4 > BUILD the BUILD file always contains 1. If I pipe to another file m4 BUILD.m4 > B it works and the B file will contain 4 when BUILD was 3. I suspect it has to do with the > output redirection. When comparing both variants with debug tracing it seems like the one with the redirection into the same file can not read from the file anymore. Variant redirection to different file:

% m4 -dtaeq BUILD.m4 > B
m4trace: -1- define(__buildnumber__', esyscmd(`cat BUILD')')
m4trace: -1- dnl
m4trace: -2- __buildnumber__ -> esyscmd(cat BUILD')'
m4trace: -2- esyscmd(cat BUILD') -> 3'
m4trace: -1- define(counter', 3')

Variant redirection to same file:

% m4 -dtaeq BUILD.m4 > BUILD
m4trace: -1- define(__buildnumber__', esyscmd(`cat BUILD')')
m4trace: -1- dnl
m4trace: -2- __buildnumber__ -> esyscmd(cat BUILD')'
m4trace: -2- esyscmd(`cat BUILD')
m4trace: -1- define(counter', ')

Is there a way of doing it like this, or do I need to use some other means of capturing the output

On Mac(Catalina) I'm trying to re-install m4 package using terminal, However it fails with below errors.

$ brew reinstall m4
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/m4/manifests/1.4.19 
Already downloaded: /Users/buildsystem/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/5b2a7f715487b7377e409e8ca58569040cd89f33859f691210c58d94410fd33b--m4-1.4.19.bottle_manifest.json
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/m4/blobs/sha256:e0fec6a49fd80cc7279c71f319d70d01ed49e894b53cd91e39f170288232fa93 
-#O#- #   #
curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate
More details here: https://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html 

curl failed to verify the legitimacy of the server and therefore could not
establish a secure connection to it. To learn more about this situation and
how to fix it, please visit the web page mentioned above.
Error: Failed to download resource "m4"
Download failed: https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/m4/blobs/sha256:e0fec6a49fd80cc7279c71f319d70d01ed49e894b53cd91e39f170288232fa93 

Even after echo insecure >> $HOME/.curlrc also resulting same errors. Please let me know to solve this issue. Thanks in advance!

Is this the correct forum? I am running ./bootstrap for a program called Qucs and it complains about VERSION

~/Downloads/qucs-0.0.20$ ./bootstrap
Running aclocal...
Running automake...
Running autoconf...
bootstrapping /home/lasse/Downloads/qucs-0.0.20/qucs-core
bootstrapping the qucs-core sources...
Creating aclocal.m4... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
done.
Creating config.h.in... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
done.
Libtoolizing... libtoolize: putting macros in AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, 'm4'.
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/libtool.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/ltoptions.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/ltsugar.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/ltversion.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/lt~obsolete.m4'
done.
Creating Makefile.in(s)... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
done.
Creating configure... done
bootstrapping /home/lasse/Downloads/qucs-0.0.20/qucs
Creating aclocal.m4... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
done.
Creating config.h.in... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
done.
Running libtoolize
libtoolize: putting macros in AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, 'm4'.
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/libtool.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/ltoptions.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/ltsugar.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/ltversion.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/lt~obsolete.m4'
Running automake... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
done.
Running autoconf... done.
bootstrapping /home/lasse/Downloads/qucs-0.0.20/qucs-doc
Creating aclocal.m4... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
configure.ac:15: error: AC_INIT should be called with package and version arguments
/usr/share/aclocal-1.15/init.m4:29: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
configure.ac:15: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal: error: echo failed with exit status: 1
done.
Creating Makefile.in(s)... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
configure.ac:15: error: AC_INIT should be called with package and version arguments
aclocal.m4:172: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
configure.ac:15: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
automake: error: autoconf failed with exit status: 1
done.
Creating configure... sh: 1: cannot open VERSION: No such file
configure.ac:15: error: AC_INIT should be called with package and version arguments
aclocal.m4:172: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
configure.ac:15: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
done.

Is it possible to define a m4 macro (without arguments), which expands to 1 on first invocation, expands to 2 on second invocation, and so on? In other words, it should have internal memory storing the number of times it is invoked. Can this be done?

How does -DQUOTE=yes work in the code below? I expected the second line to be ifelse(yes,yes,Learn Linux today!) The other parts make sense to me. From Linux Pocket Guide - by Daniel J. Barrett $ cat myfile My name is NAME and I am AGE years old. ifelse(QUOTE,yes,Learn Linux today!) $ m4 -DNAME=Sandy -DAGE=25 -DQUOTE=yes myfile My name is Sandy and I am 25 years old. Learn Linux today!

I am pretty new Freebsd user. As I am trying to install gnu m4-1.4.18, I get eval fail on eval test section: Checking ./189.eval @ ../doc/m4.texi:6405: Origin of test ./189.eval: stdout mismatch --- m4-tmp.2536/m4-xout 2017-12-18 22:11:42.931036000 +0000 +++ m4-tmp.2536/m4-out 2017-12-18 22:11:42.928582000 +0000 @@ -2,8 +2,8 @@ 1 1 -overflow occurred --2147483648 + +2147483648 0 -2 -2 this is what inside 189.eval: dnl @ ../doc/m4.texi:6405: Origin of test dnl @ expected status: 0 dnl @ extra options: dnl @ Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software dnl @ Foundation, Inc. dnl @ This file is free software; the Free Software Foundation dnl @ gives unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it dnl @ with or without modifications, as long as this notice dnl @ is preserved. define(max_int', eval(0x7fffffff')) dnl @result{} define(`min_int', incr(max_int)) dnl @result{} eval(min_int` 0') dnl @result{}1 ifelse(eval(min_int / -1'), min_int, overflow occurred') dnl @result{}overflow occurred min_int dnl @result{}-2147483648 eval(`0x80000000 % -1') dnl @result{}0 eval(`-4 >> 1') dnl @result{}-2 eval(`-4 >> 33') dnl @result{}-2 Just to let you know its fresh OS (installation) and its one of the first software I am installing.

How does one avoid m4 interpreting a $0, for example?

# foo.m4
define(m4_foo',$0')

# bar.txt
m4_foo

M4 does not replace the text. There must be some way to deposit $0 in a file via macros?

I'm using FreeBSD 13.0-CURRENT (for more information see [here](http://mpuw-um9c5.byethost4.com/unamea.txt)) , and I want to use [GNU m4](https://www.gnu.org/software/m4/m4.html) . Downloaded [this version](ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-latest.tar.xz) of it, configured, and tried to make. But it gives error as stated in the title: error: don't know how to make ../../build-aux/snippet/c++defs.h. For the whole log, [see here](http://mpuw-um9c5.byethost4.com/m4make.log) . Any idea? Thanks to all suggestions and answers. EDIT1: indeed, my m4 version is 1.4.17.

In m4, is it possible to expand a macro and to immediately put it in quotes? That is, instead of define(HELLO, `Hello!')dnl define(MACRO, `HELLO')dnl MACRO expanding to Hello!, I would love to have some function qexpand, for example, such that define(HELLO, `Hello!')dnl define(MACRO, `HELLO')dnl qexpand(`MACRO') expands to HELLO. But any other line after the first two that expands MACRO into a string would do as well, of course. --- *Background*. I want to operate substitutions on the expansion of a macro using patsubst, say substituting commas in it. Unfortunately define(MACRO',x,y,z')dnl patsubst(MACRO',,',`.') yields x,y,z, as the substitution is performed on the string MACRO. But if the expansion of the macro contains commas, the variant define(MACRO',x,y,z')dnl patsubst(MACRO,,',.') has the second line first expand to `patsubst(x,y,z,,',.'), giving the error Warning: excess arguments to builtin patsubst' ignored``. The possibility of expanding a macro into quotes would solve this.

Just finished installing ubuntu 16.04.1 desktop version. Now I am trying to install m4. So far installed m4 as follows. 1. Downloaded m4-1.4.18.tar.gz 2. tar -xvzf m4-1.4.18.tar.gz 3. cd m4-1.4.18 4. ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/m4 5. make 6. sudo make install Now when I type: m4 --version It still says: The program 'm4' is currently not installed.... What step am I missing? **Note**: I do not have internet access on this machine.

Is there a way to convince m4 to replace a macro in the middle of a word? I would like this file, day.m4: define(Sat,Cat)dnl Saturday and this command: m4 day.m4 to produce this output: Caturday As shown, m4 will not do this. Alternatively, is there a way to get sed to perform multiple substitutions simultaneously? That is, without passing over the file for each substitution. I can pipe a bunch of sed commands together or use a combination of sed and m4 and that's not so bad but if there's a convenient way to do this with one input file and one command that'd be preferable. Any other commonly available tool would be fine too. My goal is to use this for creating files from templates. Most of the tokens that are to be replaced are space separated.

I am experiencing problems with compiling autoconf and they probably are related to the version of the M4 that I am using. I will put part of the result of running both ./configure as running ./make so someone can confirm is the cause is really that and what I should do to fix it (probably moving to another version of it). If someone wants the full output of any, I will put i. The M4 version is 1.4.10 and the autoconf is 2.64. >./configure --prefix=/media/34GB/Arquivos-de-Programas-Linux/Autoconf-2.64/ --exec-prefix=/media/34GB/Arquivos-de-Programas-Linux/Autoconf-2.64/ >checking for GNU M4 that supports accurate traces... /usr/local/bin/m4 >checking whether /usr/local/bin/m4 accepts --gnu... no >configure: WARNING: The version of M4 that was found does not support -g. >configure: WARNING: Using it with POSIXLY_CORRECT set may cause problems. >checking how m4 supports trace files... --debugfile >make >make: Entering directory `/media/34GB/Arquivos-de-Programas-Linux/autoconf-2.64/lib/m4sugar' :;{ \ echo '# This file is part of -*- Autoconf -*-.' && \ echo '# Version of Autoconf.' && \ echo '# Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009' && \ echo '# Free Software Foundation, Inc.' && \ echo &&\ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_NAME], [GNU Autoconf])' && \ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_TARNAME], [autoconf])' && \ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_VERSION], [2.64])' && \ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_STRING], [GNU Autoconf 2.64])' && \ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_BUGREPORT], [bug-autoconf@gnu.org])' && \ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_URL], [http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/]) ' && \ echo 'm4_define([m4_PACKAGE_YEAR], ['sed 's/^\([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]\).*/\1/;q' ../../ChangeLog'])'; \ } > version.m4-t mv version.m4-t version.m4 make: Leaving directory `/media/34GB/Arquivos-de-Programas-Linux/autoconf-2.64/lib/m4sugar' autom4te_perllibdir='..'/lib AUTOM4TE_CFG='../lib/autom4te.cfg' ../bin/autom4te -B '..'/lib -B '..'/lib --language M4sh --cache '' --melt ./autoconf.as -o autoconf.in *** %n in writable segment detected *** Aborted autom4te: /usr/local/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 134 make: *** [autoconf.in] Error 134 make: Leaving directory `/media/34GB/Arquivos-de-Programas-Linux/autoconf-2.64/bin' make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make: Leaving directory `/media/34GB/Arquivos-de-Programas-Linux/autoconf-2.64' make: *** [all] Error 2

I am on Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon 64-bit. I was about to compile file-roller known as Archive manager for GNOME from source . But when running: ./autogen.sh There is a following M4 macro missing: > Checking for required M4 macros... yelp.m4 not found ***Error***: some autoconf macros required to build Package were not found in your aclocal path, or some forbidden macros were found. Perhaps you need to adjust your ACLOCAL_PATH?

# Background I'm facing the following problem: I insist on using m4_include([some/file.m4]) in my configure.ac file, where some/file.m4 then contains patterns like 'AC_INIT' and 'LT_INIT' that are necessary for libtoolize to work. In otherwords, I need configure.ac to be preprocessed by m4 before libtoollize feeds it to sed looking for those patterns. I do NOT want to generate configure.ac (if I can avoid it). The only hook that libtoolize provides that can help me is that they look for the environment variable SED and use that instead of /bin/sed when found. I wrote a shell script that analyses sed arguments and passes them on to the real sed. Unfortunately, libtoolize concatenates m4local.ac and configure.ac and feeds that to $SED at some point, so looking for an input file named 'configure.ac' fails. Nevertheless, after analyzing the arguments passed to $SED I can just concatenate all input files and/or stdin, because in the end it has to work by reading from a stream (stdin) anyway. # Remaining problem The problem that I am facing therefore is the following: My script must read from stdin and write to stdout, until it encounters a line like m4_include([cwm4/configure_ac_top.m4]) which it then should swallow and instead insert the contents of cwm4/configure_ac_top.m4, no other m4 preprocessing is necessary, just the includes will do. In fact, as sed is also used for countless other little things it would be downright dangerous to do any other preprocessing than the m4_include's. However I need it to be recursive as well: if an included file contains a line m4_sinclude([lt_init.m4]) then also that file needs to be included. I found multiple question and their answers on this site that ask how to insert one file into another, but then the file name of the to-be inserted file is known (not read from the original file), it isn't recursive and in many cases it wasn't reading from stdin (but from the first, known, file by name).

This is the macro I have so far: define(debug_macro', #ifndef $1_DEBUG #define $1_DEBUG'forloop(i',1',eval(5-(len($1)/4+ifelse(eval(len($1)%4 == 0)), 0', 1')), ')dnl0 #endif ') The goal is to put the correct number of tabs between the _DEBUG and the 0 character so they all line up. There may be missing parens or quotes but hopefully you get the idea of where I'm going. I'm using Xcode and have my tabs set to 4. Here are the changes I made to accommodate that: divert(`-1') # forloop(var, from, to, stmt) define(`forloop', pushdef($1', $2')_forloop($1', $2', $3', $4')popdef($1')') define(`_forloop', $4'ifelse($1, `$3', , define($1', incr($1))_forloop($1', $2', $3', $4')')') divert`'dnl changecom()dnl define(debug_macro', #ifndef $1_DEBUG #define $1_DEBUG'forloop(i', 1', ifelse(eval(len($1) >= 16), 1, 1, eval(5-(len($1)/4+ifelse(eval(len($1)%4 > 1), 0, 0', 1')))), ')0 #endif ') changecom()dnl Since I couldn't find 'forloop.m4' on my system I just included it. The division by 4 rounds so I added the check for when the remainder is greater than 1. I also change the run of spaces for a single tab character. For the interested I use this macro to define constants I use to turn on debugging of different areas of my application. This file is checked into git. There is then a file that is personal and not checked in that looks something like this: //#define NETWORK_DEBUG 1 The file is included in the myapp.pch file before including the above file. That way each programmer can have their own debug areas turned on or off as they please.

Is it possible to loop through the list of macro names given by dumpdef? I want to process certain macros which have a certain prefix in their name.