Re: make dist, hierarchical projects, and automake -ac

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Niels" == Niels Möller <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

 Niels> Each Makefile.am lists the subdirectories in SUBDIRS. The idea is that
 Niels> I should be able to (cd src/argp && make dist) or (cd src/nettle &&
 Niels> make dist) to create separate distribution tarballs of nettle and
 Niels> argp.

For this to work you need to call AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR in each
configure.ac.  (For instance `AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR(.)'.)  Otherwise
the (unfortunate) historical default is to reuse the aux scripts
found in `..' or `../..' as you have seen.

[...]

 Niels> The complete list of depcomp files in the tree at this stage is

 Niels> lsh/depcomp
 Niels> lsh/src/depcomp
 Niels> lsh/src/argp/argp-standalone-1.3/_build/depcomp
 Niels> lsh/src/argp/depcomp

 Niels> I'm not sure which of these copies should exists, or exactly when in
 Niels> step 4 they were created. I would imagine that depcomp, and other
 Niels> missing files, are only ever installed in directories where there
 Niels> exists a configure.ac (i.e. the first and the last place on the above
 Niels> list).

The other two were created during `make distcheck'.  Make distcheck
will go wild when run in (sub-)projects that are not self-contained.
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz