I have a project that relies on automatically-built sources, therefore I have created a BUILT_SOURCES variable in my src/Makefile.am file (see GNU Automake § 9.4 Built Sources). Everything works perfectly, however I have noticed that if I launch make install before launching make all the sources are correctly built, but the same does not happen if I launch make install-exec before launching make all. So I have examined the generated src/Makefile, and I have found the reason.
Currently src/Makefile.am generates the following code in src/Makefile:
install: $(BUILT_SOURCES)
$(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install-am
install-exec: install-exec-am
Evidently install and install-exec are treated differently, and the second one does not build any source. I believe that the correct generated code for src/Makefile should be instead:
install: $(BUILT_SOURCES)
$(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install-am
install-exec: $(BUILT_SOURCES)
$(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install-exec-am
Cheers and thanks, GNU folks, for your incredible work.
--madmurphy