On Thu, Jan 12, 2023, at 9:24 PM, Eduardo Hernández wrote: > I've been trying to separate the build system and source directory > completely. Part of that would be to have the 'configure' script in the > 'build' directory, away from the 'src' directory
This goes against a basic design assumption in both Automake and Autoconf: you are expected to be making tarball releases that include the configure script and a bunch of other generated files (aclocal.m4, config.h.in, Makefile.in if Automake is used, etc.) That assumption goes back to an era when most software distribution did _not_ involve direct access to the core developers' version control system (if there even _was_ one) and when asking people to install Automake and Autoconf (and all the stuff _they_ depend on, notably M4 and Perl), before they could install any _other_ GNU software, would've been a non-starter. So, all the generated code assumes that the location of the configure script *defines* the top level of the source tree. The `--srcdir` option is only intended for use as a manual override when the automatic probe for the location of the configure script doesn't work. This design arguably could stand to be reconsidered, but it'll be a lot of work to get to a place where you can do the thing you would like to do. Are you up for that work? zw
