configure: syntax error near unexpected token `png,'

[arademaker]

In MacOS, I got the following error when I run pdf-tools-install, any idea?

---------------------------
 Configuring and compiling 
---------------------------
./configure -q --bindir=/Users/arademaker/.emacs.d/elpa/pdf-tools-20171012.2226/ && make -s
./configure: line 4745: syntax error near unexpected token `png,'
./configure: line 4745: `PKG_CHECK_MODULES(png, libpng)'
===========================
     Build failed.  ;o(    
===========================
Note: maybe try the '-d' option.

Comint exited abnormally with code 1 at Thu Nov  2 10:09:21

[politza]

I don't know what's causing this. Try to remove the ./configure file and try again.

[Ambrevar]

I get a similar error on Void Linux:

Failed to recognize this system, trying to continue.
---------------------------
 Configuring and compiling 
---------------------------
autoreconf -i
configure.ac:15: installing './ar-lib'
configure.ac:11: installing './compile'
configure.ac:78: installing './config.guess'
configure.ac:78: installing './config.sub'
configure.ac:6: installing './install-sh'
configure.ac:6: installing './missing'
Makefile.am: installing './depcomp'
./configure -q --bindir=/home/ambrevar/.cache/emacs/elpa/pdf-tools-20180109.1234/ && make -s
./configure: 4745: ./configure: Syntax error: word unexpected (expecting ")")
===========================
     Build failed.  ;o(    
===========================
Note: maybe try the '-d' option.

Comint exited abnormally with code 1 at Sat Feb 10 22:34:31

[politza]

Doing a make distclean in the directory of the autobuild script before rebuilding sometimes helps.

[Ambrevar]

Nope, didn't help, neither did a package removal+reinstall.

[ambihelical]

Sometimes this occurs when pkg-config is not installed, or there is some reason m4.pkg usually found in (system-dependent-path)/share/aclocal can't be found.

In my case (Ubuntu 14.04), there was a /usr/local/share/aclocal which I had installed which was competing with the system /usr/share/aclocal. After removing the former (and all the other related autotool stuff found in /usr/local), pdf-tools-install worked.

Based on discussion here: stlink-org/stlink#83

[Ambrevar]

@ambihelical: Thanks for this very helpful feedback!
Note: The file is named pkg.m4.

On Void Linux the issue is that there are two "aclocal" folders: /usr/share/aclocal and /usr/share/aclocal-1.15 (version number may vary over time).
I did the following:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/aclocal/pkg.m4 /usr/share/aclocal-1.15/

And it fixed the issue!

[ashkan-leo]

Getting the same error @arademaker. Were you able to fix this?