What is the way to byte compile files into a different directory?

[David Kastrup]

Hi,

in the course of compiling and installing AUCTeX, I want to be able to
compile from a different source directory $(srcdir) than the current
destination directory.  What is the canonical way to do this?

It is pretty important for package building, since then compilation
for different Emacs versions has to be done and it would be
inconvenient to copy the source tree for each configuration.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum