Re: $(srcdir) in man pages and other targets

[Stefano Lattarini]

On 11/22/2012 11:57 PM, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 10:45:21PM +0000, Karl Berry wrote:
>>     the point here is to also check that those files are not rebuilt, an
>>     information that is likely to be hard to find in a make distcheck.
>>
>> Nevertheless, I believe automake checks it, via distclean.
>> >From (automake)Checking the Distribution --
> 
> Automake sort of checks it but not exactly.  For instance, if you have 
> the tool and it is rebuilt, the I don't think that automake can check
> that it is not rebuilt.
>
It does, *if* that file is not removed by "make distclean" (and
distributed files should never be).  For a long-winded example, see:
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Errors-with-distclean

>>   ... it's usually an error if your Makefiles cause some distributed
>>   files to be rebuilt when the user build the package.  (Think about
>>   the user missing the tool ...
>>
>> I admit I didn't actually test if what automake does suffices for what
>> we're doing.  If more is needed, there is distcheck-hook to run
>> arbitrary commands ...
> 
> I'd prefer not to go there...
> 
> Another point is that you may trick automake too, which I believe is
> what happens with adding $(srcdir) to the reules
>
No, you wouldn't fool it, because "make distcheck" runs a VPATH build
with the srcdir made *readonly*.  So any attempt to modify or add a file
there will cause an error (unless your build rules use explicit calls to
"chmod u+w", but then you're asking for trouble).

Regards,
  Stefano