Re: automake dependencies, missing *.Plo files

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>>   <address@hidden> writes:

 > Hi,
 > we just upgrading to

 > automake 1.6        (from 1.4)
 > autoconf 2.53       (from 2.13)
 > libtool 1.4.2       (from 1.3.5)

Wow.  Did you changed something in your configure.in and
Makefile.am's during this jump?

 > and now the package won't compile anymore. I guess that the
 > dependency mechanism has somewhat changed.

Indeed, see http://sources.redhat.com/automake/dependencies.html
for an overview.

 > The configuration of our software package is as follows. We
 > are using an 'obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL' directory to store
 > the .o files and the libs (We do not like to keep them in the
 > source code directory). The configure command runs ok and put
 > the Makefiles in the obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL
 > directories. The problem is that a subsequent 'make' command
 > stops immediately:

 > make -C 
 > /servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL/. 
 > all
 > make[1]: Entering directory 
 > `/servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL'
 > Making all in kernel
 > make[2]: Entering directory 
 > `/servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL/kernel'
 > Making all in framework
 > make[3]: Entering directory  
 > `/servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL/kernel/framework'
 > Makefile:221: .deps/BaseData.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:222: .deps/BaseInspector.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:223: .deps/BaseViewer.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:224: .deps/BaseViewerPanel.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:225: .deps/CommonInspectors.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:226: .deps/DataHandler.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:227: .deps/Defaults.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:228: .deps/DirCache.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:229: .deps/Exception.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:230: .deps/InspectorHandler.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:231: .deps/LabPainter.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:232: .deps/QtDefaultSupport.Plo: No such file or directory
 > Makefile:233: .deps/ViewerHandler.Plo: No such file or directory
 > make[3]: *** No rule to make target `.deps/ViewerHandler.Plo'.  Stop.
 > make[3]: Leaving directory 
 > `/servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL/kernel/framework'
 > make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
 > make[2]: Leaving directory 
 > `/servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL/kernel'
 > make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
 > make[1]: Leaving directory 
 > `/servers/ockham_fs1/gloger/develop/LabFramework/obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL'
 > make: *** [all] Error 2

 > Obviously it do not find the *.Plo files in one of the
 > 'obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL' directories. Those files are not
 > created at all. I checked this with the find command.

More precisely, did you mean that there is no .deps/*.P*
created at all, or only those from kernel/framework/ are
missing?

Does the kernel/framework/.deps/ directory exist? What does it
contain?

 > If I try to build the software without this extra object
 > directory the .deps directories are created.

To summarize

 % cd obj/gcc_2.95.3-release-GL; ../../configure --youroptions

does not create some (or all?) of the .deps/*.P* files, while 

 % ./configure --youroptions

successfully creates everything required.  Is this correct?

(It's not clear to me whether you was using a VPATH build, i.e.,
../../configure as described above; or a maze of symlinks as
I've seen some people using; or even something else.)

 > The old automake/autoconf/libtool combination did not fail at all.

 > Any ideas what's going wrong?

No, but here are a few hints.

If you edit configure and uncomment the following line near the end

    # echo "creating $dirpart/$file"

it will print the name of every *.P* it creates.

Actually, these *.P* files are created by config.status for
each directory it creates an Automake Makefile in.
(BTW, make sure `./config.status --help' lists the relevant
Makfiles in the `Configuration files' section).

You can request the creation of the *.P* files for a given
directory by running

 % rm -Rf kernel/framework/.deps
 % ./config.status kernel/framework/Makefile depfiles

If this fails to create the files in one setup and succeed in
the other, then you could rerun this with `sh -x' and compare
the trace for both cases.

Ah, last question: what sed version are you using?  (Just to
make sure it's not the same problem as
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/bug-automake/2001/msg00584.html)
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz