Hello,
I am trying to improve dependency tracking for a project I work on. We have a two level configure process. Under the top configure process we have about 40 semi-independent packages that have separate configure scripts. Each package has at least one library archive associated with it and some number of tests and examples. Changes to header files (the project is mostly written in C and C++) are typically recognized by the tests and examples, but when we change a source file and the library is modified, the tests and examples only relink if the particular library is listed in the DEPENDENCIES primary associated with the executable. What would be ideal would be if it were possible to automatically figure out dependencies at a source file level, rather than a library level, but I didn't see any way of doing that. I tried to specify the value for the DEPENDENCIES primary in the same way we specify LDADD and CPPFLAGS, which is by using macro values from another Makefile defined at configure time. The dependencies are not known until configure time because some packages can be optionally coupled, so the dependencies depend on which packages are enabled. For example, we might say something like include Makefile.export.packageA myexe_LDADD = $(PACKAGEA_LIBS) PACKAGEA_LIBS is calculated by knowing which packages are enabled (and in some cases using some other scripts). We have used this approach for a couple of years and it works just fine. As dependencies between packages change, only the packages whose direct dependencies change need to be modified, if package A depends on package B and package B adds a required or optional coupling with package C, package A's build system does not need to be modified. When I add myexe_DEPENDENCIES = $(PACKAGEA_DEPENDENCIES) $(PACKAGEA_DEPENDENCIES) is not resolved before dependencies are checked. Despite the fact that I put the include directive at the top of the Makefile.am, it shows up at the bottom of the Makefile. If I manually move the include directive higher in the makefile (but below the definition of top_builddir), everything works as I would hope. Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing this problem or for a different approach I should take for dependency tracking? Thanks Jim Willenbring
