Re: Problems on make distcheck

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Stefan Bienert wrote on Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 03:28:39PM CET:
> 
> the output of make distcheck is attached to this mail.

Thanks.  Stefan sent me an example package off-list, with which I could
confirm the issue.  It went like this:

Makefile.am contains:
  SUBDIRS = share
  EXTRA_DIST = share

share/Makefile.am contains:
  SUBDIRS = misc
  EXTRA_DIST = misc

etc.  These EXTRA_DIST settings are problematic.  I understand why
you may want to have them, but in general, it's not a good idea to
list whole directories there.  The files that automake installs
and that aclocal uses, are distributed automatically anyway.  For any
additional files, put them in EXTRA_DIST manually.  That way, you avoid
shipping, e.g., backup files, test logs and whatnot lying around there.

You can also leave things as they are now.  However, then it will not
work with the current distcheck code (as you have noticed).  What it
does is make certain files and directories read-only, in order to ensure
that `make dist' in an up to date tree does not write into the source
tree.  I don't see a simple method yet that would support your
EXTRA_DIST usage within distcheck without weakening the test.

[...]
> make[1]: Entering directory `/home/foo/bar/usr/prj-0.1/_build'
> { test ! -d prj-0.1 || { find prj-0.1 -type d ! -perm -200 -exec chmod u+w {} 
> ';' && rm -fr prj-0.1; }; }
> test -d prj-0.1 || mkdir prj-0.1
> cp: cannot create regular file `prj-0.1/share/misc/m4/acx_pthread.m4': 
> Permission denied
> cp: cannot create regular file `prj-0.1/share/misc/m4/size_max.m4': 
> Permission denied
> cp: cannot create regular file `prj-0.1/share/misc/config/depcomp': 
> Permission denied
[...]
> cp: cannot create regular file `prj-0.1/share/misc/config/missing': 
> Permission denied
> make[1]: *** [distdir] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/foo/bar/usr/prj-0.1/_build'
> make: *** [distcheck] Error 2

Cheers,
Ralf

2008-02-06  Ralf Wildenhues  <address@hidden>

        * test/Makefile.am (EXTRA_DIST): Remove.
        * test/share/Makefile.am (EXTRA_DIST): Likewise.
        * test/share/misc/Makefile.am (EXTRA_DIST): Likewise.

diff -ru test.orig/Makefile.am test/Makefile.am
--- test.orig/Makefile.am       2008-02-06 20:27:29.000000000 +0100
+++ test/Makefile.am    2008-02-06 21:03:15.000000000 +0100
@@ -9,8 +9,6 @@
 
 SUBDIRS=src share
 
-EXTRA_DIST=share
-
 # Local variables:
 # eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
 # time-stamp-start: "Last modified: "
diff -ru test.orig/share/Makefile.am test/share/Makefile.am
--- test.orig/share/Makefile.am 2007-10-10 09:16:01.000000000 +0200
+++ test/share/Makefile.am      2008-02-06 21:03:20.000000000 +0100
@@ -7,11 +7,9 @@
 
 SUBDIRS=misc 
 
-EXTRA_DIST=misc 
-
 # Local variables:
 # eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
 # time-stamp-start: "Last modified: "
 # time-stamp-format: "%:y-%02m-%02d.%02H"
 # time-stamp-end: "$"
-# End:
\ No newline at end of file
+# End:
diff -ru test.orig/share/misc/Makefile.am test/share/misc/Makefile.am
--- test.orig/share/misc/Makefile.am    2008-02-06 21:01:30.000000000 +0100
+++ test/share/misc/Makefile.am 2008-02-06 21:04:11.000000000 +0100
@@ -5,8 +5,6 @@
 
 # See COPYING file in the top level directory of this tree for licence.
 
-EXTRA_DIST=m4 config
-
 # Local variables:
 # eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
 # time-stamp-start: "Last modified: "