Problems getting dependencies compiled before executable.... (and general problem controlling ORDER of operations.).

[cs]

I have multiple executables built from my source tree.

Some files in 1 directory are needed by many executables
so I made a library to link everwhere needed.

This one directory now must build this library and ALSO
the executable in that directory.  It was a real struggle
to get library built FIRST as well as executable in same
directory.  I don't know if I did it
the easiest way.

Autotools book mentions putting SUBDIRS at the TOP
of Makefile.am with a "." (i.e. current directory) as
one of the subdirs.  Apparently you can get current
directory worked on before subdirs this way.


I would have preferred that build system would see

   myprogram_DEPENDENCIES = libmylibrary.a

and automatically known to build library FIRST.

Instead I always got messages about 'make' not finding

rule to build this target even though I have

noninst_LIBRARIES = libmylibrary.a in same Makefile.am.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Chris