Re: Problem with VPATH builds and SCRIPTS primary

[Peter Johansson]

On 11/02/2016 08:06 PM, Raphaël Halimi wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> Thanks for your answer.
>
> Just to make sure I understand:
>
> > CLEANFILES += data/.dirstamp
> >
> > data/.dirstamp:
> >       @$(MKDIR_P) data
> >       @: > $@
> This creates a directory "data", and then a file ".dirstamp" in this
> directory by redirecting the (empty) result of the "true" command to
> this file.

Yes, I stole this rule from the rule generated by Automake when it 
creates files in subdirs.

> > data/foo.txt: data/.dirstamp
> >        <some rule>
> This creates a file "foo.txt" (in my case it would be a shell script) in
> the "data" directory according to a some rule.

Correct

> Unlike the other solution, this doesn't involve configure.ac, and so
> it's usable with a "pure" automake setup (without autoconf). This is not
> the case of my current setup but still, I see this as an advantage, to
> clearly separate the "configure" phase and the "make" phase (I'm still
> new to autotools).

Yes, I prefer to have the code for this in Makefile.am (rather than 
configure.ac); it's the natural place to look when 'make' doesn't work 
and easier for new developers to understand, imho.

Cheers,
Peter