Re: 2 problems with 3.3.92

[Rik]

> 
> John,
> two problems are still there
> 
> 1) building in a separate dir, documentation fails as
>    contributors.texi is expected in the build dir, but it is only
> available in the src tree.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> make -C doc/interpreter ../../AUTHORS
> make[3]: Entering directory
> `/pub/cygports/octave/octave-3.3.92-1/build/doc/interpreter'
> rm -f AUTHORS
> /bin/sh 
> /pub/cygports/octave/octave-3.3.92-1/src/octave-3.3.92/build-aux/missing
> --run makeinfo -D AUTHORSONLY \
>          --no-validate --no-headers --no-split --output AUTHORS preface.texi
> preface.texi:82: @include `contributors.texi': No such file or directory.
> makeinfo: Removing output file `AUTHORS' due to errors; use --force to 
> preserve.
> make[3]: [../../AUTHORS] Error 1 (ignored)
> mv AUTHORS ../../AUTHORS
> mv: cannot stat `AUTHORS': No such file or directory
> make[3]: *** [../../AUTHORS] Error 1
> ----------------------------------------------------------
There is something wrong here.  If you are building from a tarball it
contains all of the documentation pre-built.  We specifically do this
because some distributions versions of Texinfo are weak.  At least on a
Debian system, building in a separate directory from the source works fine.

I would start by untarring the 3.3.92 tarball and verifying that the
AUTHORS file is there and that the timestamp is newer than
contributors.texi in doc/interpreter.  This is the case for me.

If this checks out then there may be an issue with your version of GNU Make
and VPATH builds.  For example, when I try a test make of AUTHORS in my
build directory I get
----------------------------------------------------------
rik:~/downloads/build: make -n AUTHORS
make -C doc/interpreter ../../AUTHORS
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/rik/downloads/build/doc/interpreter'
make[1]: `../../../octave-3.3.92/doc/interpreter/../../AUTHORS' is up to date.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/rik/downloads/build/doc/interpreter'
----------------------------------------------------------

Note that the file it checks for the timestamp is not './AUTHORS' in the
build directory, but a huge relative path name to the source directory.

What does your make log show for the two DOCSTRINGS files in src/ and
scripts/?  If it is mistakenly re-building these then this will trigger a
re-build of all the .texi files which would require AUTHORS to be re-built.

> 
> 3) octave.info is updated/modified in the src tree
This is probably the same error in another form.  The documentation should
not require rebuilding.

--Rik