Subject: bug#76527: "make distcheck" broken in non-recursive build systems using Vala support

From: Reuben Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:57:14 +0200

See commit 73f5ca3a of Zile:
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/zile.git/commit/

Also see https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?66843

"make dist" works, but "make distcheck" fails as Vala-generated C files
remain in the out-of-tree build directory.

I have not worked out why, but it seems that the rule that should copy the
file from the top directory into the sub-directory does not fire. (The Vala
compiler is not terribly sympathetic to non-recursive build systems either,
so we generate complicated Makefile rules to work around it.)

I don't think this is a serious problem, as a) not many people use Vala,
and b) not many people use non-recursive build systems; also, c) Vala
itself recommends the use of Meson these days.

Hence, consider this a placeholder bug for now. If there is demand to fix
it, I might be able to find time to look into it further.

My own plan, should I need to make another release of Zile (the last
release was nearly 4 years ago, and there's little chance of a significant
change requiring an update), is to just run "make dist" if it's a minor
fix, or to switch back to a recursive build system.

(Incidentally, I am using Vala with automake on various other projects, all
using single-directory or recursive build systems, and it works fine,
including, I discovered last week, using the TAP support in Automake to run
Vala's GLib-based test suites. Using Vala & GLib obviates the use of
bootstrap+gnulib, which makes builds quite fast enough for my purposes,
while still benefitting from the familiarity, power and flexibility of the
autotools.)

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