Re: [bug-gnulib] VPATH and IRIX make (was: m4-1.4.6 soon?)

[Bruno Haible]

Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> A make portability bug shows up on sgi:
>   mips-sgi-irix6.5$ make all check
>         make  all-recursive
>   Making all in .
>   Making all in examples
>   Making all in lib
>         cp ../../lib/getopt_.h getopt.h-t
>         mv getopt.h-t getopt.h
>         sed -e 's/@''HAVE__BOOL''@/0/g' < ../../lib/stdbool_.h > stdbool.h-t
>         mv stdbool.h-t stdbool.h
>         make  all-am
>         cc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../../lib -I..      -g -c strnlen1.c
>   cc ERROR:  file does not exist:  strnlen1.c
>   *** Error code 2 (bu21)
>   *** Error code 1 (bu21)
>   *** Error code 1 (bu21)
>   *** Error code 1 (bu21)
>   mips-sgi-irix6.5$ gmake all check
>     [[...]]
>   All checks successful

You're attempting a VPATH build with a non-GNU make. This is not supported.
See the INSTALL file:

   "You can compile the package for more than one kind of computer at the
    same time, by placing the object files for each architecture in their
    own directory.  To do this, you can use GNU `make'.  `cd' to the
    directory where you want the object files and executables to go and run
    the `configure' script.  `configure' automatically checks for the
    source code in the directory that `configure' is in and in `..'.

       With a non-GNU `make', it is safer to compile the package for one
    architecture at a time in the source code directory.  After you have
    installed the package for one architecture, use `make distclean' before
    reconfiguring for another architecture."

See also autoconf's documentation:

   "If you use
    @code{VPATH}, the simplest way to avoid these portability bugs is to
    stick with @acronym{GNU} @command{make}, since it is the most
    commonly-used @command{make} among Autoconf users."

Bruno