make dist, hierarchical projects, and automake -ac

[Niels Möller]

I'm using automake-1.8.2 and autoconf-2.59.

I have a tree of several automake projects. It basically looks like
this:

  lsh/configure.ac
  lsh/Makefile.am
  src/Makefile.am
  src/argp/configure.ac
  src/argp/Makefile.am
  src/nettle/configure.ac
  src/nettle/Makefile.am

Each Makefile.am lists the subdirectories in SUBDIRS. The idea is that
I should be able to (cd src/argp && make dist) or (cd src/nettle &&
make dist) to create separate distribution tarballs of nettle and
argp.

I also let automake install common files, like depcomp and install-sh.
I do this with automake -ac (symlinks are useless when I access the
source tree via NFS from machines with no automake installation).

However, this doesn't quite work. The problem is that
src/argp/Makefile.in is created with references to the parent
directory, like

  DIST_COMMON = $(am__configure_deps) $(noinst_HEADERS) \
        $(srcdir)/../../depcomp $(srcdir)/../../install-sh \
        $(srcdir)/../../missing $(srcdir)/../../mkinstalldirs \
        $(srcdir)/Makefile.am $(srcdir)/Makefile.in \
        $(srcdir)/config.h.in $(top_srcdir)/configure ChangeLog TODO \
        mempcpy.c strcasecmp.c strchrnul.c strndup.c vsnprintf.c
  
  depcomp = $(SHELL) $(top_srcdir)/../../depcomp
                                   ^^^^^

I've seen sligtly different variants too, the above refers to files
in the top-level lsh directory, I've also seen

  DIST_COMMON = $(am__configure_deps) $(noinst_HEADERS) \
        $(srcdir)/../depcomp $(srcdir)/../install-sh \
        $(srcdir)/../missing $(srcdir)/Makefile.am \
        $(srcdir)/Makefile.in $(srcdir)/config.h.in \
        $(top_srcdir)/configure ChangeLog TODO mempcpy.c strcasecmp.c \
        strchrnul.c strndup.c vsnprintf.c
  
  depcomp = $(SHELL) $(top_srcdir)/../depcomp

which refers to files in the lsh/src directory.

An argp distribution made with this Makefile.in (for example by cd
src/argp && make dist) obviously won't work.

I can reproduce the problem as follows:

1. Make a fresh checkout of lsh

   cvs -d :pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/lsh co lsh

2. Run automake at toplevel,

   cd lsh
   aclocal && autoconf && autoheader && automake -ac

3. Run automake in the argp sub directory,

   cd src/argp
   aclocal && autoconf && autoheader && automake -ac

Now, src/argp/Makefile.in is broken, as described above. Also, no
copies of depcomp, missing, install-sh etc are created in the src/argp
directory.

4. After some more steps to create makefiles and lsh-specific symlinks
   (./.bootstrap && ./configure at top-level), I can try

   cd src/argp && make distcheck

I get errors from make distcheck, although it's not obvious that they
are caused by the broken Makefile.in:

  ERROR: files left in build directory after distclean:
  ./depcomp
  ./install-sh
  ./missing

The complete list of depcomp files in the tree at this stage is

  lsh/depcomp
  lsh/src/depcomp
  lsh/src/argp/argp-standalone-1.3/_build/depcomp
  lsh/src/argp/depcomp

I'm not sure which of these copies should exists, or exactly when in
step 4 they were created. I would imagine that depcomp, and other
missing files, are only ever installed in directories where there
exists a configure.ac (i.e. the first and the last place on the above
list).

It seems to work better if I use automake -a instead of automake -ac,
but that shouldn't matter.

Regards,
/Niels