Non-recursive make & intermediate objects

[Bob Friesenhahn]

Using Automake 1.7.9, I am attempting to create a single Makefile.am
which is capable of building all of the libraries used by the project.
The source files to the project are located in subdirectories, and the
output libraries should also be located in subdirectories.  The
objective is to replace an existing recursive build.

Using a rule like:

noinst_LIBRARIES = libs/somedir/libfoo.a
libs_somedir_libfoo_a_SOURCES=foo.cc

and then inpecting the output of 'make -n' (and the generated
Makefile), I see evidence that the build will put all .Po files in a
.deps subdirectory under the Makefile.am, and all the .o files in the
same directory as Makefile.am.  This approach seems quite wrong to me
since it is quite possible that libraries and applications may use
similarly named source files.  Intermediate files should be placed
either under the directory where the library is placed, or in the
directory where the source files live.  An even better solution would
allow the user to specify where intermediate files are placed on a
per-library and per application basis.

Is there a way to convince Automake to behave more usefully?

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen