[bug-gnulib] Re: getdate module description error?

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Derek Price <address@hidden> wrote:

> I'm using a stock automake 1.9.5 and I am not seeing the problem you
> describe.

GNU cpio CVS tree is a working sample. What happens is this:

1. Makefile.am section in module/getdate contains:

BUILT_SOURCES += getdate.c
MAINTAINERCLEANFILES += getdate.c
EXTRA_DIST += getdate.c

Then, everything works fine.

2. When Makefile.am section contains:

BUILT_SOURCES += getdate.c
MAINTAINERCLEANFILES += getdate.c

then, bootstrap and make work OK. However, after `make dist' the file
getdate.c does not get into the distribution tarball:

tar tf cpio-2.6.90.tar.gz '*/getdate.*'
cpio-2.6.90/m4/getdate.m4
cpio-2.6.90/lib/getdate.h
cpio-2.6.90/lib/getdate.y

And `make distcheck' fails:

ERROR: files left in build directory after distclean:
./lib/getdate.c

That's why EXTRA_DIST is needed.

3. Finally, with empty Makefile.am section bootstrap fails:

autoreconf: running: automake --add-missing --copy --force-missing
configure.ac:122: required file `lib/getdate.c' not found
autoreconf: automake failed with exit status: 1

The reason for this particular failure seems to be explained in
autom4te.cache/traces.0:

m4trace:configure.ac:46: -1- gl_GETDATE
m4trace:configure.ac:46: -1- AC_LIBSOURCE([getdate.h])
m4trace:configure.ac:46: -1- AC_LIBSOURCE([getdate.y])
m4trace:configure.ac:46: -1- AC_LIBSOURCE([getdate.c])

Apparently, the last AC_LIBSOURCE makes automake to believe that the
file getdate.c must be present in lib/. That's why BUILT_SOURCES is
needed.

Regards,
Sergey