Re: autoconf-2.62: `make install' fails if file system is case insensitive

[Eric Blake]

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[adding bug-automake and bug-make; this is
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2008-05/msg00000.html]

According to Keith Marshall on 5/9/2008 2:16 PM:
| If autoconf's Makefile is processed by a GNU make-3.81, which has been
| configured to respect a case insensitive file system, (IMO, the correct
| configuration for use on MS-Windows, among other other systems which
| also have such file systems), and the build is configured directly
| within the source directory, then `make install' fails thus:
|
|   $ make install
|   Makefile:678: warning: overriding commands for target `install'
|   Makefile:574: warning: ignoring old commands for target `install'
|   /bin/sh /home/rgbl0264/foobar/foo/autoconf-2.62/build-aux/missing \
|       --run makeinfo --no-headers --no-validate --no-split  -o install \
|       ./doc/install.texi

Looking further at this, what happens with your case-insensitive make when
running 'make dist' on a project built with 'automake --gnu'?  There,
automake adds an automatic dependency on all 'dist*' targets to unadorned
INSTALL.  Does that mean that 'make dist' will attempt to install the
package when run on MSYS?  Will it just be a no-op because the file
INSTALL already exists?  Is this something that automake needs to address,
by outputting $(abs_srcdir)/INSTALL rather than plain INSTALL in the
dependencies of distdir?

|
| This problem was recently reported by a user on the MinGW users ML:
| http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.mingw.user/26315
|
| It is not apparent when performing a VPATH build, but is reproducible
| when building in the source directory, both for autoconf-2.62, and for
| earlier versions, (I've also confirmed this for autoconf-2.61).

Because in a VPATH build, $(srcdir)/INSTALL is different than ./INSTALL,
and it looks like case-insensitive GNU make is treating 'make install' and
'make ./INSTALL' as synonyms.  Maybe this is also something that should be
addressed in GNU make, as case-insensitivity makes following GNU Coding
Standards rather difficult?  GNU Coding Standards require the existence of
both 'make install' and './INSTALL'.

|
| This issue may be resolved by replacing each of the three references to
| `$(srcdir)/INSTALL', in the Makefile, by `$(abs_srcdir)/INSTALL'.  I've
| confirmed this, by making the appropriate changes in Makefile.in, and
| then successfully repeating the `./configure && make && make install'
| sequence under MSYS-1.0.11, (with case-insensitive GNU make-3.81), in
| the autoconf-2.62 source directory, on MS-Win2K.  The attached patch,
| against released autoconf-2.62's Makefile.am, will introduce the same
| change, on next Makefile.in regeneration.

That worked for 'make install', but broke 'make dist'; I'm trying to
figure out whether adding:

INSTALL: $(abs_srcdir)/INSTALL

to autoconf's Makefile.am will be making the problem any worse (at least
it fixes the 'make dist' regression when using the normal case-sensitive
GNU make).  Maybe the short answer is that on MSYS (or anywhere else with
case-insensitive GNU make), you should not expect 'make dist*' to work.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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