trying to install docs that are distributed with my package...

[Ed Hartnett]

Howdy all!

I have some documentation which accompanies my library. I would like
to install the documentation on the user machine, without building it
on the user machine.

What I want is to build the documentation on the developer's machine,
include it in the distribution, and then install it.

The documents are all texinfo documents, and we cannot require that
every user machine have texinfo and tex installed.

For example, I can build my manuals, and include their postscript,
PDF, info, and ASCII text versions in the distribution like this:

# These are the source files for all the netcdf manuals.
info_TEXINFOS = netcdf.texi netcdf-install.texi netcdf-c.texi   \
netcdf-f77.texi netcdf-f90.texi netcdf-cxx.texi netcdf-tutorial.texi

# Get lists of the corresponding ps, info, and pdf files.
ps_docs = ${info_TEXINFOS:.texi=.ps} 
pdf_docs = ${info_TEXINFOS:.texi=.pdf}
info_docs= ${info_TEXINFOS:.texi=.info}
txt_docs= ${info_TEXINFOS:.texi=.txt}

# These files will be included with the dist.
EXTRA_DIST = $(ps_docs) $(pdf_docs) $(txt_docs) $(info_docs)

This works well. The documents are all build on the developer machine
when "make dist" is run, and they all appear in the distribution as
built documentation. When I run "make all" on the distribution,
nothing happens with these documents. (I am using no-installinfo as an
automake option).

This is exactly what I want.

But how to get automake to install them?

I tried this:

docdir = $(prefix)/doc/$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)
doc_DATA = $(ps_docs) $(pdf_docs) $(txt_docs) $(info_docs)

But this now causes the postscript, PDF, text, and info files to be
built when I run "make install" on the distribution. In other words,
it doesn't try to install the files I've already included in the
distribution, it rebuilds them all. I don't want it to rebuild the
files, just to install the ones I've already shipped.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Ed



-- 
Ed Hartnett  -- address@hidden