Fix failure of "./configure; make dist"

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

According to the GNU Coding Standards
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Standard-Targets.html
  "The dist target should explicitly depend on all non-source files
   that are in the distribution, to make sure they are up to date
   in the distribution."

An easy way to test whether the 'dist' target has this property
is to run

   $ ./configure
   $ make dist

or (in a VPATH build)

   $ ../configure
   $ make dist

without doing "make" before "make dist".

Distributed non-source files that make this difficult are the man pages
for programs, that are generated from the '--help' output using help2man.

While packages that only have a top-level Makefile.am (such as GNU sed
or GNU coreutils) get this right, it is a little bit more complicated
in packages with a Makefile.am per directory (such as GNU m4 and
GNU gettext). Originally reported for GNU gettext at
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gettext/2024-07/msg00010.html>.

In GNU m4
  $ ./configure; make dist
fails like this:

$ make dist
...
 (cd doc && make  top_distdir=../m4-2024-05-13 distdir=../m4-2024-05-13/doc \
     am__remove_distdir=: am__skip_length_check=: am__skip_mode_fix=: distdir)
make[3]: Entering directory '/M4/m4/doc'
make  distdir-am
make[4]: Entering directory '/M4/m4/doc'
WARNING: The `man' page `m4.1' cannot be updated yet.
         Retry once the program executable is ready.
cp: cannot stat './m4.1': No such file or directory
make[4]: *** [Makefile:2242: distdir-am] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4/doc'
make[3]: *** [Makefile:2239: distdir] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4/doc'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:2172: distdir-am] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:2166: distdir] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4'
make: *** [Makefile:2273: dist] Error 2

And when this is fixed, it fails in a different place:

$ make dist
...
 (cd checks && make  top_distdir=../m4-2024-05-13 
distdir=../m4-2024-05-13/checks \
     am__remove_distdir=: am__skip_length_check=: am__skip_mode_fix=: distdir)
make[3]: Entering directory '/M4/m4/checks'
make  distdir-am
make[4]: Entering directory '/M4/m4/checks'
rm -f ./*[0-9][0-9][0-9].*
cd . && AWK=gawk ./get-them ../doc/m4.texi
Node: Top 
Node: Preliminaries - truncated
Node: Intro 
Node: History 
Node: Bugs 
Node: Manual 
Node: Invoking m4 - truncated
Node: Operation modes - truncated
Node: Preprocessor features - truncated --  1 file
Node: Limits control - truncated
Node: Frozen state - truncated
Node: Debugging options - truncated --  1 file
Node: Command line files - truncated --  5 files
Node: Syntax 
Node: Names 
Node: Quoted strings - truncated
Node: Comments  --  2 files
Node: Other tokens - truncated
Node: Input processing - truncated --  2 files
Node: Macros 
Node: Invocation 
Node: Inhibiting Invocation - truncated --  8 files
Node: Macro Arguments - truncated --  5 files
Node: Quoting Arguments - truncated --  1 file
Node: Macro expansion - truncated --  2 files
Node: Definitions - truncated
Node: Define  --  3 files
Node: Arguments  --  6 files
Node: Pseudo Arguments - truncated --  9 files
Node: Undefine  --  3 files
Node: Defn  --  7 files
Node: Pushdef  --  2 files
Node: Indir  --  3 files
Node: Builtin  --  5 files
Node: Conditionals - truncated
Node: Ifdef  --  1 file
Node: Ifelse  --  5 files
Node: Shift  --  8 files
Node: Forloop  --  3 files
Node: Foreach  --  6 files
Node: Stacks  --  2 files
Node: Composition - truncated --  4 files
Node: Debugging 
Node: Dumpdef  --  2 files
Node: Trace  --  5 files
Node: Debug Levels - truncated --  3 files
Node: Debug Output - truncated --  1 file
Node: Input Control - truncated
Node: Dnl  --  3 files
Node: Changequote - truncated --  11 files
Node: Changecom  --  6 files
Node: Changeword  --  6 files
Node: M4wrap  --  6 files
Node: File Inclusion - truncated
Node: Include  --  6 files
Node: Search Path - truncated
Node: Diversions  --  4 files
Node: Divert  --  5 files
Node: Undivert  --  6 files
Node: Divnum  --  1 file
Node: Cleardivert - truncated --  2 files
Node: Text handling - truncated
Node: Len  --  1 file
Node: Index macro - truncated --  4 files
Node: Regexp  --  3 files
Node: Substr  --  2 files
Node: Translit  --  4 files
Node: Patsubst  --  5 files
Node: Format  --  4 files
Node: Arithmetic 
Node: Incr  --  1 file
Node: Eval  --  6 files
Node: Shell commands - truncated
Node: Platform macros - truncated --  3 files
Node: Syscmd  --  2 files
Node: Esyscmd  --  1 file
Node: Sysval  --  2 files
Node: Mkstemp  --  3 files
Node: Miscellaneous - truncated
Node: Errprint  --  1 file
Node: Location  --  3 files
Node: M4exit  --  2 files
Node: Frozen files - truncated
Node: Using frozen files - truncated --  3 files
Node: Frozen file format - truncated
Node: Compatibility - truncated
Node: Extensions  --  1 file
Node: Incompatibilities - truncated
Node: Other Incompatibilities - truncated --  2 files
Node: Answers 
Node: Improved exch - truncated --  1 file
Node: Improved forloop - truncated --  3 files
Node: Improved foreach - truncated --  11 files
Node: Improved copy - truncated --  2 files
Node: Improved m4wrap - truncated --  2 files
Node: Improved cleardivert - truncated --  1 file
Node: Improved capitalize - truncated --  2 files
Node: Improved fatal_error - truncated --  1 file
Node: Copying This Package - truncated
Node: GNU General Public License - truncated
Node: Copying This Manual - truncated
Node: GNU Free Documentation License - truncated
Node: Indices 
Node: Macro index - truncated
Node: Concept index - truncated
echo stamp >stamp-checks
make[4]: *** No rule to make target '*[0-9][0-9][0-9].*', needed by 
'distdir-am'.  Stop.
make[4]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4/checks'
make[3]: *** [Makefile:1957: distdir] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4/checks'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:2174: distdir-am] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:2168: distdir] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/M4/m4'
make: *** [Makefile:2275: dist] Error 2

The attached patch fixes both issues.

Note that it has the side-effect that a plain "make all" will build the
artifacts in a different order: First the $(BUILT_SOURCES), then the rest.
But this is harmless.

0001-build-Fix-failure-of-.-configure-make-dist.patch
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