stamp-vti and OpenBSD make

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

I'm trying to build a slightly modified libunistring-0.9.3
on OpenBSD 4.5. With GNU make, there is no problem. But with
/usr/bin/make, I get this error:

  $ wget http://www.haible.de/bruno/gnu/libunistring-0.9.3a.tar.gz
    [This tarball was generated with automake's "make distcheck" rule.]
  $ tar xvfz libunistring-0.9.3a.tar.gz
  $ cd libunistring-0.9.3
  $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/gnu
  $ make
  make  all-recursive
  Making all in doc
  restore=: && backupdir=".am$$" &&  am__cwd=`pwd` && 
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . &&  rm -rf $backupdir && mkdir $backupdir && 
 if (env LANG= LC_MESSAGES= LC_ALL= LANGUAGE= /bin/sh 
/home/bruno/libunistring-0.9.3/build-aux/missing --run makeinfo --version) 
>/dev/null 2>&1; then  for f in ./libunistring.info ./libunistring.info-[0-9] 
./libunistring.info-[0-9][0-9] ./libunistring.i[0-9] 
./libunistring.i[0-9][0-9]; do  if test -f $f; then mv $f $backupdir; 
restore=mv; else :; fi;  done;  else :; fi &&  cd "$am__cwd";  if env LANG= 
LC_MESSAGES= LC_ALL= LANGUAGE= /bin/sh 
/home/bruno/libunistring-0.9.3/build-aux/missing --run makeinfo  -I . 
--no-split -I .  -o ./libunistring.info ./libunistring.texi;  then  rc=0;  
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd .;  else  rc=$?;  CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" 
&& cd . &&  $restore $backupdir/* `echo "././libunistring.info" | sed 
's|[^/]*$||'`;  fi;  rm -rf $backupdir; exit $rc
  ./libunistring.texi:5: warning: unrecognized encoding name `UTF-8'.
  .//uninorm.texi:198: Unknown command `arrow'.
  .//uninorm.texi:198: Misplaced {.
  .//uninorm.texi:198: Misplaced }.
  .//uninorm.texi:198: Unknown command `arrow'.
  .//uninorm.texi:198: Misplaced {.
  .//uninorm.texi:198: Misplaced }.
  makeinfo: Removing output file `./libunistring.info' due to errors; use 
--force to preserve.
  *** Error code 1

  Stop in /home/bruno/libunistring-0.9.3/doc (line 846 of Makefile).
  *** Error code 1

  Stop in /home/bruno/libunistring-0.9.3 (line 885 of Makefile).
  *** Error code 1

  Stop in /home/bruno/libunistring-0.9.3 (line 788 of Makefile).

The problem is in the doc/ directory the order of the time stamps:

  $ cd doc
  $ ls -lrt libunistring.texi libunistring.info version.texi stamp-vti
  -rw-r--r--  1 bruno  users   35868 Jan  1 03:38 libunistring.texi
  -rw-r--r--  1 bruno  users      98 Mar 29 11:16 version.texi
  -rw-r--r--  1 bruno  users  295312 Mar 30 00:11 libunistring.info
  -rw-r--r--  1 bruno  users      98 May  2 23:30 stamp-vti

together with these rules and dependencies:

(1)   all: all-am

(2)   all-am: Makefile $(INFO_DEPS) all-local
      INFO_DEPS = $(srcdir)/libunistring.info

(3)   .texi.info:
        ...

(4)   $(srcdir)/libunistring.info: libunistring.texi $(srcdir)/version.texi 
$(libunistring_TEXINFOS)

(5)   $(srcdir)/version.texi:  $(srcdir)/stamp-vti

(6)   $(srcdir)/stamp-vti: libunistring.texi $(top_srcdir)/configure
        ...

Rules (1)-(6) are all generated by automake.

The problem is that the stamp-vti rule (6) can leave on disk a stamp-vti
file that is newer than version.texi. The OpenBSD 'make' then interprets
rule (5) as a declaration that version.texi is out-of-date. But when
version.texi is out-of-date, rule (4) says that libunistring.info
should be rebuilt, and this requires more than the "usual tools"
(namely, a new enough 'makeinfo' program).

Can the stamp-vti handling be rewritten some way?

Or should the GNU standards and the INSTALL file be changed to specify
that on OpenBSD, GNU 'make' is necessary for building packages?

Bruno