distcheck fails with autotest: autom4te: cannot open ../../tests/testsuite.tmp: Permission denied

[Benoit SIGOURE]

Hello list,
I'm writing a set of M4 macros to properly use Boost with Autoconf (I  
found some macros on the Internet, but none of them was robust enough  
or even close to be maintainable).  In order to test my macros,  
autotest seemed like the way to go.  I imported most of the machinery  
used by Autoconf itself to easily test macros (AT_CHECK_MACRO and  
friends), I think that these are *very* convenient when you want to  
test your macros and they probably ought to be installed (along with  
lib/autotest/*.m4).

Anyways, I must have b0rken something at some point, because now when  
I `make distcheck', I get:

make[3]: Entering directory `/Users/tsuna/svn/git/boost.m4/_build/ 
boost-m4-test-0.1/_build/tests'
/bin/sh /Users/tsuna/svn/git/boost.m4/_build/boost-m4-test-0.1/build- 
aux/missing --run autom4te --language=autotest -I '../../tests' ../../ 
tests/testsuite.at -o ../../tests/testsuite.tmp
autom4te: cannot open ../../tests/testsuite.tmp: Permission denied
make[3]: *** [../../tests/testsuite] Error 1

I can't find what's wrong and why it's trying to do that *at that time*.
The code is at http://repo.or.cz/w/boost.m4.git and the first bad  
commit seems to be http://repo.or.cz/w/boost.m4.git?a=commit;h=367827
(found with:
  git bisect start
  git bisect bad
  git bisect good 78ce946;
  git bisect run `pwd`/t.sh
  git bisect reset
where t.sh is basically:
  set -xe
  ./bootstrap
  cd _build
  rm -f config.cache
  ../configure
  make distcheck
)

so my guess is that it's related to the fact that I chose to generate  
`package.m4' with config.status (it's an AC_CONFIG_FILES) instead of  
having it depend on `Makefile' as shown in the Autoconf manual.  I  
stumbled on another problem when I did what was in the manual, that  
is when `package.m4' depends on `Makefile', can't remember what it  
was though (and it's getting late).  And I like AC_CONFIG_FILES  
better, this way it doesn't pollute my Makefile.am with useless rules.

I can't find a nice solution, how would you tackle that?

Cheers,

PS: build-aux/boost.m4 is on its way to being tested in my two  
buildfarms (I checked it manually on OSX PPC/Intel, Linux GCC3/GCC4,  
Windows MinGW/VC++) so if you get bored and don't know what to do,  
feel free to proofread it (or even, go crazy and test it on your own  
system) :D

--
Benoit Sigoure aka Tsuna
EPITA Research and Development Laboratory

PGP.sig
Description: This is a digitally signed message part