Re: checking the texinfo package

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Karl,

* Karl Berry wrote on Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 08:13:24PM CEST:
>     +SUBDIRS = . tests
> 
> This looks weird to me.  I've never seen it before.  Every source dir
> with a tests subdir is supposed to do this?

Not supposed, no: The GCS do not require that
  ./configure && make check

succeed without an intermediate `make'.

> How about making check depend on all, instead?  That seems a lot cleaner.

That is already the case for Automake-generated makefiles, but only
per-directory.  So with the above, you'd just be making it a tad more
comfortable for users.  Another option would be to have either
`all-local' or `$(TESTS)' in tests/Makefile.am depend on
`../makeinfo$(EXEEXT)', and write a rule to go back up and build it.
But that's even uglier and I avoid it when possible: you usually don't
have all the information to specify the binary's dependencies, so you
end up working too often (if you .PHONY it and always invoke another
$(MAKE)) or too seldom (otherwise).

Cheers,
Ralf