On 2014-10-20 20:25 +0300, fr33domlover wrote: > > There are two related things that distcheck is testing here, and either > > one of them may be tripping you up. > > > > First, distcheck is checking that users can run "make dist" from your > > tarball. > > Indeed `make dist` succeeds. > > > Second, distcheck is checking that all this works properly in VPATH > > builds (i.e., with srcdir != builddir). > > I didn't try, but I assume it will work because the only problem is that > script, which IS present in the right place. The Makefile.am makes sure it > will > be taken from $srcdir. The problem happens because `make distcheck` copies > files from the source repo into a new temporary srcdir.
Not exactly. Distcheck first creates a distribution tarball (i.e., make dist), THEN it unpacks the tarball into a temporary srcdir and tests that. In other words, distcheck is directly testing the 'user experience' when they unpack a tarball you publish. Part of that user experience is that the following sequence should work: - download your package tarball from a website. - unpack it - ./configure && make dist Since your script is not distributed, that sequence must not require the script to work. [...] > It's going to be the first release, so I didn't try distcheck until now. > > The line which generates the ChangeLog in the snippet above requires that > script > to be present in $srcdir - but distcheck doesn't copy it to its temporary > srcdir, so it's not present. You should not need to copy the script at all, as it should be run at 'make dist' time or earlier. This will happen directly in your VCS- controlled srcdir, before distcheck unpacks the tarball to test. > The solution to the problem of .git not being present during distcheck may be: > In distcheck-hook, take it from the right place (i.e. $(srcdir)/../.git) and > then try to make the ChangeLog again. The thing about the script is, that > while > I can do the same (pick the script from the original $srcdir), it would be > somewhat wrong design-wise - if a script is used for `make dist`, then `make > distcheck` should copy it into the temporary srcdir just like the source code. > While not installed nor distributed, the script is *used* during the process > and is therefore required. I'm not sure I understand. When "make distcheck" tests the distribution, it tries to run "make dist" from the tarball. This must succeed *without* running your script at all, as the git history will not be available in this scenario. So when building from the tarball, your distribution should copy the already-included ChangeLog instead of generating a new one. As I mentioned, one solution is to use a dist-hook to generate the ChangeLog only when certain conditions (i.e., building from source control) are met. There are other possibile solutions: for example, Automake generates ChangeLog in builddir using a phony target. Personally, I think a dist-hook is simpler. > How do I tell `make distcheck` to do that? I did try to have the > ChangeLog target depend on the script file, but then instead of being > satisfied by it (since the script file exists), it complains there's > no target for it (but none needed since it's a file and it already > exists). You can't have ChangeLog depend on your script because the script is not distributed, so this dependency can never be satisfied in the tarball. > Is there a solution for this in automake? Yes, use a dist-hook. Cheers, -- Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)
