Re: compilation error in VPATH build

[Bruno Haible]

Hi José,

> > Files that are NOT packed into a tarball should be erased by "make 
> > distclean";
> > therefore they are usually put into the builddir.
> >
> > On the other hand, files that ARE packed into a tarball should not be erased
> > by "make distclean" (only by "make maintainer-clean"), and should reside in
> > srcdir, per the GNU Coding Standards
> > <https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Makefile-Basics.html>.
> 
> Hm, but do we actually want to include the RAS-generated .pkc files in
> the tarball?
> 
> I don't see any problem in doing so, but neither any benefit: RAS is
> distributed in the tarball and gawk is a build-time requirement...

I see at least two portability problems in the 'ras' script:

  * In line 720
            print errors[nerror] | "cat 1>&2"
    it uses a syntax that is not supported by POSIX awk
    <https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/awk.html>
    So, while 'configure' can rely on any awk implementation, I believe
    that 'ras' doesn't.

  * In line 518, it invokes the 'cpp' program, which is known for a long
    time to be absent from many systems. (That's why Autoconf AC_EGREP_PP
    actually runs "cc -E", not "cpp".)

Therefore, having the .pkc files in the tarball is a clear win for portability.

Bruno