Re: ensure a VPATH build

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Julien Lecomte wrote on Sun, Feb 19, 2006 at 05:20:50PM CET:
> On 19/02/2006 11:50, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> >Going back to your original question: what about the much simpler
> >approach I suggested, which would avoid all of these issues?

> The suggestion rules out the fact that it may be legit to have a file 
> called 'configure' or 'configure.gnu' in the building directory. 
> Although I wouldn't recommend having such a file, I think it shouldn't 
> be arbitrarily ruled out.

That's dangerous.  If you use Automake, or your however-created Makefile
uses the VPATH feature, chances are that you have rules that will depend
on `configure' or other generated files.  Having files with the same
name in corresponding directories of both source and build tree will
cause subtle issues with different `make' implementations.  So it should
be avoided.  I don't think Autoconf needs to take care of the rare,
hypothetical case where this would actually be both safe and useful.

Cheers,
Ralf