Re: Building the .info files in build directory.

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> writes:

 Simon> Simon Richter <address@hidden> writes:
[...]
 >> When the source dir is readonly, noone can change the texinfo files. If
 >> noone can change the texinfo files, there is no need to rebuild the info
 >> files, so it doesn't matter that they're in a readonly directory.

 Simon> I don't think this is true in general, a texinfo file could @include a
 Simon> file that is built during the build phase.

If a .texi file is built, the resulting .infos files must not be
distributed (see the `distcleancheck' FAQ for explanations).

Automake currently doesn't support non-distributed .info files,
so you have to hack your Makefile.am to prevent such
distribution and clean the .info files yourself.  See the
Texinfo package for an example (obviously Texinfo doesn't want
to distribute .info files it can rebuild itself).  Automake 1.8
is able to detect this situation and build such .info files in
the build tree.  There is no problem here.

What we cannot support are packages where .info files are
distributed (hence they will appear in $(srcdir) after
untarballing) and yet must be rebuilt in the build-dir if
needed.  This simply cannot be done portably.
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz