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

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

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

[...]

 Greg> Potentially any product file which is derived from a source file, and
 Greg> which must be included in the distribution, and thus which must _not_ be
 Greg> removed by "make distclean" is could cause the same problem.  In some
 Greg> cases the dependency might be on config.status, while in others it might
 Greg> be on another built file (or both, as is the case with my *-dist files).

 Greg> I understand what you mean by strictly saying these final EXTRA_DIST
 Greg> files depend on files which are not distributed, but the same is true of
 Greg> config.status and obviously it must not be distributed at all, 

I don't get this.  What's the trouble with config.status?  I
really can't see how its related to your problem.

`config.status' is a non-distributed file which depends upon
a distributed file (configure, which itself depends upon
distributed files only).

All the files which depend upon config.status are not
distributed (they are even cleaned by `make distclean').

I'm sorry to state this again: as far we are concerned, the
`distcheck' failures happens when distributed files are
dependent upon non-distributed built files.

Fortunately, neither config.status, not its dependencies, nor
its dependent files, do fit into this scheme.  That's why it
works without trouble.  Amen.

 Greg> and ultimately any dependency on config.status is only a
 Greg> way to represent the recording of "configure-time"
 Greg> environmental dependencies in a way that 'make' can
 Greg> understand.

Of course.  Yet I still do get your point.

[...]

 >> << distributed files dependent upon non-distributed built files >>

 Greg> Whether or not the final product file depends on an intermediate product
 Greg> file or not is really irrelevant.

What is relevant is that `make' or `make install' causes this
intermediate products to be built ("non-distributed built
files"), and hence latter (during `make dist' in this case, but
`make' in the other cases) triggers the rules for the final
product ("dependent upon").

[...]

 >> >> 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> Ultimately my only complaint is with "make distcheck", so strictly
 Greg> you're talking about a fix that won't work to fix the problem I'm
 Greg> actually encountering

Did you tried?

`make distcheck' fails because the second `make dist' it runs
creates files in `$(srcdir)'.  If you change `make dist' to not
populate `$(srcdir)' (using `dist-hook' instead of your
EXTRA_DIST dependencies), `make distcheck' won't fail.

[...]

-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz