Subject: bug#34846: top_builddir incorrectly formulated when src directory at same level as configure

From: "Allwright, James" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2019 15:44:36 +0000

Hi,

I believe I have found a bug in automake relating to the parsing of
filepaths and/or directories.

I am getting a make failure after running "configure", then
"make" as follows:

~/autotools/proj3$ make
Making all in ../proj3_src
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/allwrigj/autotools/proj3_src'
cd ../.. && make  am--refresh
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/allwrigj'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target 'am--refresh'. Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/allwrigj'
Makefile:278: recipe for target '../../aclocal.m4' failed
make[1]: *** [../../aclocal.m4] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/allwrigj/autotools/proj3_src'
Makefile:330: recipe for target 'all-recursive' failed
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

I have tracked down the problem in proj3_src/Makefile :

top_builddir = ../..

should be

top_builddir = ../proj3

and with this change, the program compiles as expected.

In  proj3/ Makefile.am  I have

SUBDIRS= ../proj3_src

and in proj3/configure.ac I have

AC_INIT([../proj3_src/hello.c], [0.1])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])
AC_PROG_CC
AC_PROG_INSTALL
AC_OUTPUT(Makefile)
AC_OUTPUT(../proj3_src/Makefile)

The versions of the tools are
automake (GNU automake) 1.15
autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.69

Regards,

James Allwright
Software Developer,
The Automobile Association

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