automation: problem with builddir != srcdir requirement

[Claudio Fontana <sick_soul at yahoo dot it>]

Hello,

I am building a generic installation program for GNU
coding standards-compliant packages.
http://www.gnu.org/software/sourceinstall/

I am also helping all GNU projects with a
non-compliant build system make the move to the GNU
coding standards, with patches and support.

I have a problem with current builddir != srcdir
requirement in glibc and recent versions of gcc.
Maybe you can give me an advice, or tweak your build
system around this problem.

This program is general enough to build most parts of
a GNU/Linux system automatically from source without
any overhead, or manual tweak.

The problem is that, while an user can read a message
like:

configure: error: you must configure in a separate
build directory

A program does not expect this. The trivial solution,
to modify the program to build all packages from a
separate directory, breaks many other packages, which
rely on srcdir == builddir .

There is no mention in the GNU coding standards about
such a requirement. The result is that many packages
break if not built with srcdir == builddir.

If it is really not possible to build in the source
directory, could you detect this and automatically
create a directory "build"? There could also be a
configure option to specify an alternative directory
name, if name clashes are possible.

Thank you,

CLaudio



	

	
		
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