Re: Question about testing a library.

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Schrader, Glenn wrote on Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 09:10:13PM CEST:
> I believe that I found the answer to my poorly asked question. My
> confusion started when I noticed that target lists that begin with
> check_ are special in that they are only built when 'make check' is
> executed. This is reasonable since you probably want to do a complete
> build before building any of the tests. I am using the target
> 'installcheck' to verify that my installed libraries are working by
> building test programs against the files installed at the install
> prefix. It doesn't make any sense to make installcheck before making
> install since there won't be anything at the install prefix to allow a
> build to succeed.

Right.  But automake doesn't ensure that you have typed 'make install'
beforehand, either.  I think you should just tell your users, better
document it somewhere, that they have to use 'make install' before using
'make installcheck'.

Note that automake cannot add a dependency: it is certainly possible
that installation has to be done by a privileged user, while
installcheck should typically be usable for nonprivileged users.

Cheers,
Ralf