parallel make problem with our Texinfo manual

[G. Branden Robinson]

I have a reproducible problem that I don't understand.

I've elided my actual build directory name below because it's not
important.

$ echo '@c' >> doc/groff.texi
$ (cd build && make -j all check)
make  check-am
LANG=C \
LC_ALL=C \
makeinfo -o doc/groff.info --enable-encoding -I.../groff/build/../doc 
.../groff/build/../doc/groff.texi
make[1]: Entering directory '.../groff/build'
make   
make[2]: Entering directory '.../groff/build'
LANG=C \
LC_ALL=C \
makeinfo -o doc/groff.info --enable-encoding -I.../groff/build/../doc 
.../groff/build/../doc/groff.texi
makeinfo: rename doc/groff.info failed: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [Makefile:12224: doc/groff.info] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '.../groff/build'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:10129: check-am] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '.../groff/build'
make: *** [Makefile:10132: check] Error 2
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....

Essential parts of this include:
(1) I have to actually modify groff.texi.  Touching its timestamp does
not suffice.
(2) I have to call the "all" _and_ "check" targets.
(3) I have to use the "-j" flag.

What I think is happening is that make(1) is forking off a job for each
of the "all" and "check" targets, and they are racing against each
other.  One of them always loses, so I always get the error.

I see Ingo is feeling feisty, so I'll add this: please don't advise me
to not use -j.  Our *.am files work fine with it in most respects.

In a minor mystery, I don't know what's generating that ENOENT
diagnostic; on my system, makeinfo is a symlink to texi2any (as it is
for most people, I expect), and in that Perl script I can't find a line
corresponding to it.

Any ideas?

Regards,
Branden

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