Automake: Compiling sources in other directories

[Dave Brolley <brolley at redhat dot com>]

Hi,

I want ot use automake to build a library for which the source has been 
supplied to me by a customer. The directory structure is something like:

src/main -- most of the source files are here
src/host -- a few host-specific source files here

In src/main, I have a Makefile.am containing something like this:

  lib_LTLIBRARIES = libfred.la
  hostdir=$(srcdir)/../host
  libfred_la_SOURCES = src1.cpp src2.cpp $(hostdir)/h1.cpp

Everything compiles ok, but the generated Makefile.in contains

  libfred_a_OBJECTS =  src1.o src2.o $(hostdir)/h1.o

The problem is that h1.o is in the 'main' subdirectory along with all of 
the other object files. What's the right way to build a few sources from 
another directory into an application?

The only think I can think of is to have another Makefile.am in src/host 
which builds the host sources either into object files or into a library 
which could be referenced by the src/mainMakefile.am, but that seems 
like overkill just to pick up a couple of source files. Reorganizing the 
source tree is also not an option.

Wondering if there is a better way.....
Dave