Re: How do i get make install to only copy target if it was rebuilt

[Russ Allbery]

Thomas Dickey <address@hidden> writes:

> It's possible to make your install-target depend on the file that you
> want to install, but doing that for several files can be tedious.  I do
> this in regular makefiles, for instance

> $(INSTALLDIR)/foo: $(SRCDIR)/foo
>       $(INSTALL) $(SRCDIR)/foo $(INSTALLDIR)/foo

Note that depending on your expected audience, this can be confusing and
more trouble than it's worth.  I used to do all installation in INN this
way (INN doesn't use Automake) and changed it to follow the more common
approach of having make install always install files due to user
confusion.

People would do things like have two build trees, install from the first
tree, install the second tree while testing something, and then go back
and try to reinstall from the first tree and be very confused when it
didn't do anything.

-- 
Russ Allbery (address@hidden)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>