bug#14991: distcheck passes --prefix to configure before *DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS

[Stefano Lattarini]

Reference: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=14991>

tags 14991 + patch
close 14991
thanks

On 07/31/2013 08:37 AM, Akim Demaille wrote:
> Hi!
> 
Hi Akim, thanks for the report, and sorry for the awful delay.

> Admittedly, what prompts this report is arguably a bug in
> a package: It passes _all_ the configure flags to
> AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.  Not a bright idea I guess,
> but simple.
> 
> Unfortunately distcheck reads:
> 
> # This target untars the dist file and tries a VPATH configuration.  Then
> # it guarantees that the distribution is self-contained by making another
> # tarfile.
> distcheck: dist
>       case '$(DIST_ARCHIVES)' in \
>       *.tar.gz*) \
> …
>         && ../configure --srcdir=.. --prefix="$$dc_install_base" \
>           $(AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) \
>           $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) \
>         && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) \
> 
> So the "local" flags, --srcdir and especially --prefix, are
> provided by distcheck, and then overridden by the user's
> DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.  Since I use --prefix, boom.
> 
> Very much agreed, --prefix should not have made it into
> (AM_)DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS; however it seems simple to
> just pass --srcdir and --prefix last to be protected against
> such cases.
>
I agree.  The code in "make distcheck" implicitly assumes that the
values for --srcdir and --prefix it defines cannot be changed, so
it makes no sense to allow them to be overridden.

I've fixed the issue with the two attached patches, that will appear
in Automake 1.14.1 (someday when I'll actually get around to release
it ;-).  I will wait some time before pushing the patches out, so a
review is welcome.

Regards,
  Stefano

0001-tests-expose-bug-14991-relates-to-distcheck.patch
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0002-distcheck-don-t-allow-overriding-of-prefix-and-srcdi.patch
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