Re: compilation error in VPATH build

[Jose E. Marchesi]

>> > 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".)

Yeah, cpp is also broken in many llvm installations.

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

Agreed.
OK for master then.

Thanks!