autoconf problem, related to Swish-e install

[Richard Morin]

The Swish-e package (http://swish-e.org) uses autoconf
(etc) for its build and installation.

  # Generated by GNU Autoconf 2.59.

In attempting to use this on a Solaris machine

  % uname -a
  SunOS flora02 5.9 Generic_117171-05
  sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V240

I encountered a peculiar problem, wherein some of the
files got installed in the wrong directory.  I have
traced the problem down to a particular Makefile

  .../build/filters/Makefile

This file defines a make variable:

  nobase_perlmodule_SCRIPTS = \
    Filters/Doc2txt.pm \
    Filters/Pdf2HTML.pm \
    Filters/ID3toHTML.pm \
    Filters/XLtoHTML.pm

using it in assorted places.  Although I cannot find
any code that modifies the value of the variable, I
found that it had gotten changed by the time it got
to this code:

  install-nobase_perlmoduleSCRIPTS: $(nobase_perlmodule_SCRIPTS)
        @$(NORMAL_INSTALL)
        $(mkinstalldirs) $(DESTDIR)$(perlmoduledir)
        @list='$(nobase_perlmodule_SCRIPTS)'; for p in $$list; do \
          if test -f "$$p"; then d=; else d="$(srcdir)/"; fi; \
          if test -f $$d$$p; then \
            f=`echo "$$p" | sed 's|^.*/||;$(transform)'`; \
            f=`echo "$$p" | sed 's|[^/]*$$||'`"$$f"; \
            echo " $(nobase_perlmoduleSCRIPT_INSTALL) $$d$$p      
[break]
              $(DESTDIR)$(perlmoduledir)/$$f"; \
            $(nobase_perlmoduleSCRIPT_INSTALL) $$d$$p             
[break]
              $(DESTDIR)$(perlmoduledir)/$$f; \
          else :; fi; \
        done

[Note - I have added two line breaks above, for presentation.]

Inserting a trace statement into this code

  @echo ">>> npS='$(nobase_perlmodule_SCRIPTS)'";

just above

  @list='$(nobase_perlmodule_SCRIPTS)'; for p in ...

I found that the value of nobase_perlmodule_SCRIPTS had changed:

  >>> npS='Filters/Doc2txt.pm
    ../../../swish-e-2.4.2/filters/SWISH/Filters/Pdf2HTML.pm      
[break]
    ../../../swish-e-2.4.2/filters/SWISH/Filters/ID3toHTML.pm     
[break]
    Filters/XLtoHTML.pm'

Curiously, this behavior is not present under GNU make.

  % gmake -v
  GNU Make version 3.79.1, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
  Built for sparc-sun-solaris2.5.1 ...

I'm running configure by means of the following script:

  :
  # config_rdm - configure swish-e

  CWD=`pwd`
  TGT='local'
  TGT='ltest'                                   # DEBUG
  VER='2.4.2'

  echo "CWD='$CWD', HOME='$HOME', TGT='$TGT', VER='$VER'"

  ../swish-e-$VER/configure       \
    --disable-shared              \
    --prefix=$HOME/$TGT           \
    CPPFLAGS=-I$HOME/$TGT/include \
    LDFLAGS="-R$HOME/$TGT/lib -L$HOME/$TGT/lib"

It prints:

  CWD='/afs/slac.stanford.edu/u/gl/rdm/swish-e/build'
  HOME='/u/gl/rdm', TGT='ltest', VER='2.4.2'

reflecting the fact that my home directory is known
both as '/u/gl/rdm' and '/afs/slac.stanford.edu/u/gl/rdm'

I'm not a make wizard, but I'm willing to add other traces,
send complete copies of files, and so forth if it will help
in tracking down this problem.

-r