In the Open MPI project, we have found a corner case in Automake 1.14.1 (see https://github.com/open-mpi/ompi/issues/250).

Here's a simplified reproducer in a Makefile.am:

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lib_LTLIBRARIES = lib@A_PREFIX@a_lib.la
noinst_LTLIBRARIES = lib@A_PREFIX@a_noinst.la

lib@A_PREFIX@a_lib_la_SOURCES = a.c

lib@A_PREFIX@a_noinst_la_SOURCES = $(lib@A_PREFIX@a_lib_la_SOURCES)
----

Assume that A_PREFIX is AC_SUBST'ed to be the value "AAA".  In the resulting Makefile:

1. The value of $(libAAAa_noinst_la_SOURCES) will be correct -- it gets assigned from $(libAAAa_lib_la_SOURCES).  Meaning: it will be "a.c".
2. The value of $(libAAAa_noinst_la_OBJECTS) will be empty.  It *should* be "a.o".

Trivial reproducer attached.  It's essentially a configure.ac and a.c to support the above Makefile.am rules, and a trivial override of the "all" rule echoing the 4 Makefile macros so that you can see that $(libAAAa_noinst_la_OBJECTS) is empty.

Just "./configure && make" and you'll see:

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...configure output...
  CC       a.lo
  CCLD     liba_lib.la
  CCLD     liba_noinst.la
liba_lib_la_SOURCES is: a.c
liba_lib_la_OBJECTS is: a.lo
====================
liba_noinst_la_SOURCES is: a.c
liba_noinst_la_OBJECTS is: -- THIS SHOULD NOT BE BLANK
-----

-- 
Jeff Squyres
jsquyres@cisco.com
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