Re: Possible dist_man_MANS problem with AM 1.10.1

[Jeff Squyres]

On Jun 20, 2008, at 1:07 PM, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> > Greetings.  I notice that "dist_man_MANS" files inside of an Automake
> > conditional are not unconditionally put into a distribution  
> > tarball, but
> > other kinds of files are.
>
> Sounds like an inconsistency, yes.  Not yet sure how to best solve  
> this
> (fix semantics, or fix documentation).  It'd be cool to have two  
> bits of
> information: whether the manpages are only to be installed
> conditionally, or also only exist/are generated conditionally.

FWIW, we thought that we had explicitly asked for them to be  
unconditionally distributed via the "dist_" prefix.

> The semantic difference between MANS and DATA could maybe be explained
> with the fact that MANS are often generated (and sometimes with
> maintainer-only tools).  Hmm.  Of course the probable cause of this is
> an omission in the MANS handling; I haven't checked yet.

Agreed.  But we thought that we overrode that confusion with the  
"dist_" prefix.

> > if CONDITION
> > dist_man_MANS = file1.1
> > dist_pkgdata_DATA = file2.txt
> > endif
>
> > After running "make dist", file2.txt is included in the tarball but
> > file1.1 is not.
>
> This appears to not be a regression, 1.9.6 seems to have this, too.
>
> If you want them to be distributed unconditionally,
>  EXTRA_DIST += $(dist_man_MANS)
>
> is a simple workaround.


FWIW, that doesn't work in my example for 2 reasons:

- Can't use += before = (trivial to fix -- I assume you were just  
speaking in shorthand)
- Because of the false CONDITIONAL, dist_man_MANS ends up in the  
Makefile as:

-----
#dist_man_MANS = file1.1
-----

So $(dist_man_MANS) is empty.  The solution I used in Open MPI was  
analogous to this:

-----
EXTRA_DIST = file1.1

if CONDITION
dist_man_MANS = file1.1
endif
-----

So I have to list the man pages twice.  Slightly ick, but it does  
work.  Alternatively, one could do something like this:

-----
my_man_pages = file1.1

EXTRA_DIST = $(my_man_pages)

if CONDITION
dist_man_MANS = $(my_man_pages)
endif
-----

Which has the benfit of only listing the pages once.  Of course, if  
the man pages are the only thing in EXTRA_DIST, you could list those  
in dist_man_MANS as well, without the extra my_man_pages...  I think  
I've beaten this horse enough.  :-)

--
Jeff Squyres
Cisco Systems