autoconf: Work around editline not being found on Ubuntu 16.04.

And probably other Linux distributions with long-term support releases.

Also update manual stating what version is needed;
I checked that 1.14 is the oldest version with which current nix compiles,
and added autoconf feature checks for some functions added in that release
that nix uses.

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 426d3b674072..28be50575efa 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -171,7 +171,16 @@ PKG_CHECK_MODULES([SQLITE3], [sqlite3 >= 3.6.19], [CXXFLAGS="$SQLITE3_CFLAGS $CX
 PKG_CHECK_MODULES([LIBCURL], [libcurl], [CXXFLAGS="$LIBCURL_CFLAGS $CXXFLAGS"])
 
 # Look for editline, a required dependency.
-PKG_CHECK_MODULES([EDITLINE], [libeditline], [CXXFLAGS="$EDITLINE_CFLAGS $CXXFLAGS"])
+# The the libeditline.pc file was added only in libeditline >= 1.15.2,
+# see https://github.com/troglobit/editline/commit/0a8f2ef4203c3a4a4726b9dd1336869cd0da8607,
+# but e.g. Ubuntu 16.04 has an older version, so we fall back to searching for
+# editline.h when the pkg-config approach fails.
+PKG_CHECK_MODULES([EDITLINE], [libeditline], [CXXFLAGS="$EDITLINE_CFLAGS $CXXFLAGS"], [
+  AC_CHECK_HEADERS([editline.h], [true],
+    [AC_MSG_ERROR([Nix requires libeditline; it was found neither via pkg-config nor its normal header.])])
+  AC_SEARCH_LIBS([readline read_history], [editline], [],
+    [AC_MSG_ERROR([Nix requires libeditline; it was not found via pkg-config, but via its header, but required functions do not work. Maybe it is too old? >= 1.14 is required.])])
+])
 
 # Look for libsodium, an optional dependency.
 PKG_CHECK_MODULES([SODIUM], [libsodium],