GNU bug report logs - #12064
distclean failure with Automake 1.12.2

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From: Peter Johansson <trojkan <at> gmail.com>
To: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 12064 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#12064: distclean failure with Automake 1.12.2
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:58:54 +1000

Hi Stefano,

On 7/27/12 7:08 PM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> severity 12064 minor
> thanks
>
> On 07/27/2012 04:12 AM, Peter Johansson wrote:
>> Hi automakers,
>>
>> I was about to make a release when I discovered that distcheck suddenly didn't work
>> anymore.  The distclean rule failed with
>>
>> Making distclean in doc
>> make[2]: Entering directory `/home/peterJo/projects/software/yat-0.8.x/yat-0.8.2/_build/doc'
>> Makefile:498: ../yat/classifier/doxygen.mk: No such file or directory
>> Makefile:499: ../yat/normalizer/doxygen.mk: No such file or directory
>>
> [Aside:
>   This seems quite a complex and brittle occurrence of inter-directory dependencies;
>   have you thought about the possibility of converting to a non-recursive setup?  I
>   have done so with Automake itself (since version 1.12), and have been very, very
>   happy with that move so far.]
>
Yes, we have converted to non-recursive Makefile in trunk since that 
branch was created, and to get rid of this hack was one the reasons we 
decided to do so.

>> This was for a stable branch release so there had just been minor changes in two .cc files
>> and no changes at all wrt the build system. After some investigation I found that Automake
>> 1.12.2 has changed the order directories are traversed for clean rules.
>>
> I thought of this change as a mere cleanup actually, since the previous different
> order of directory traversal for clean rules was basically a relic needed by the
> older (and now long-dead) implementation of automatic dependency tracking:
> <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/history/automake-history.html#First-Take-on-Dependencies>
>
>> I must say I find
>> it unexpected that behaviour like this is changed between 1.12.1 and 1.12.2. I thought this
>> kind of changes were only introduced when bumping versions from say 1.11 to 1.12 and not
>> between stable releases.
>>
>> The reason I got the failure is that files doxygen.mk are included into doc/Makefile.
>> These files are generated in the corresponding Makefile and listed under DISTCLEANFILES
>> so they are deleted during 'make distclean'. As SUBDIRS in top Makefile.am is
>> "SUBDIRS = doc yat" that was not a problem before since doc was entered first during
>> cleaning and doc/Makefile was already gone when the doxygen.mk files were removed.
>>
>> Perhaps a strange use case, but still I wanted to report it.
>>
> And you did well; perhaps this this worth some documentation addition?
> Not sure.  Anyway, a good reason to keep the bug report open for now.
>
Well, I found it easily in NEWS. When I read the NEWS in your release 
announcement I couldn't connect the dots that this would bite. I guess 
that's the nature of hacks.
>> I think I've found a workaround
>>
> Curios: which workaround?
I moved the removal of doxygen.mk to doc/Makefile

http://dev.thep.lu.se/yat/changeset/2794

Cheers,
Peter

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