Re: "make distcheck" vs. EXTRA_DIST files made during "make dist"

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Greg" == Greg A Woods <address@hidden> writes:

 Greg> [ On Monday, May 13, 2002 at 10:26:56 (+0200), Alexandre Duret-Lutz 
wrote: ]

[...]

 >> Because these distributed files are dependent upon
 >> non-distributed built files.

 Greg> They _are_ the built files.  That my Makefile goes through two steps to
 Greg> create them is irrellevant.  They must be created during "make dist",
 Greg> just like the "configure" script itself.  They are dependent upon
 Greg> distributed files but they themselves must also be distributed.

Huh?  AFAICT the distributed newsyslog.cat8-dist depends on
newsyslog.cat8 which is *not* distributed (this one is
built). Likewise for the other *-dist files.

If newsyslog.cat8 was distributed we would never have seen this
problem (because newsyslog.cat8 would not be built during
distcheck, and hence the rule to rebuild newsyslog.cat8-dist
would not be triggered).  But before you jump on this statement:
I have understood you don't want do this! :) I'm just trying to
explain how all these issues (Texinfo's, Autogen's, and yours)
are instances of the *same* problem:
  
<< distributed files dependent upon non-distributed built files >>

[...]

 Greg> Although I'm not intimately familiar with those two examples, I believe
 Greg> in both cases they could use the approach I've taken to eliminate the
 Greg> need to re-build distributed files at "make all" time and instead only
 Greg> do it at "make dist" time as I do.  

It's not clear to me how this would work: their files are needed
during `make all or `make install'; that's not your case (only
copy-dist-mans needs that).  I'll send this whole thread to
Bruce Korb (Autogen's author) because 1) he might likes it, 2)
he hasn't complained about this for a while :)

[...]

 Greg> (The only headache those project maintainers with
 Greg> multiple projects face w.r.t. the GNU Auto* tools is that
 Greg> there are too many incompatible different versions of
 Greg> each of them!  :-)

I can't help but agree.  Even without the smiley.

 >> In your case I think a workaround would be to create your files
 >> during `make dist' but directly in the *distribution* directory,
 >> not in the source directory.

 Greg> No, I don't think so.  Distribution directories can be read-only.  They
 Greg> must not ever be modified during a VPATH reach-over build.  Indeed isn't
 Greg> that exactly the case with "make distcheck"?

We are talking about different things.  What I call
`distribution directory', $(distdir), is the temporary directory
into which files are copied before making the tarball.  This one
is obviously writable, and you can modify it right before the
tarball is made using the `dist-hook' target as I suggested in
the previous mail.

What you are talking about is the the source directory,
$(srcdir), which indeed can be read-only when building in VPATH
from a CD-ROM, or during `make distcheck'.

 Greg> I'm very happy with the fix I proposed, and I think I
 Greg> would be equally happy with changing the "make distclean"
 Greg> call to "make maintainer-clean".  (though I've not
 Greg> actually tested the latter)

 Greg> I'm quite capable of maintaining and using my own
 Greg> Automake release (I've certainly done so before and
 Greg> though I wouldn't exactly be happy to have to do so
 Greg> again, 

Actually, I think you have many way to workaround this from your
Makefile.am (until someone comes up with a generic solution).

If you don't like the `dist-hook:' hack I suggested, there are
other possibilities.  You can override the `distcleancheck'
target in your own Makefile.am.  Just duplicate `distcleancheck'
and insert a `rm -f $(MAKE_DIST)' inside.

distcleancheck: distclean
        rm -f $(MAKE_DIST)
        if test '$(srcdir)' = . ; then \
          echo "ERROR: distcleancheck can only run from a VPATH build" ; \
          exit 1 ; \
        fi
        test `$(distcleancheck_listfiles) | wc -l` -eq 0 \
          || { echo "ERROR: files left after distclean:" ; \
               $(distcleancheck_listfiles) ; \
               exit 1; } >&2

Or even shorter, just override the `distcleancheck_listfiles' variable:

distcleancheck_listfiles = rm -f $(MAKE_DIST); find . -type f -print

I must say find the dist-hook approach much less ugly.

 Greg> this is exactly the kind of feature that would make it
 Greg> worth my while to do so).  However given the known
 Greg> commonality of this problem I would strongly suggest that
 Greg> the Automake maintainers should choose one of the options
 Greg> I've offered so that everyone has a common solution
 Greg> available out-of-the-box.

Personally I'm not really against introducing yet another
variable, I just think it doesn't help in the other cases.  
A solution which is generic enough to address the whole issue
would be better.  (This said, I have nothing to suggest.)
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz