[Ecls-list] configure and make dependencies

[Daniel Herring]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008, Raymond Toy wrote:

> First, configure wants to create the directory build and then configure
> there.  Could this be extended so that I can configure in any
> directory?  Then I can have just one source tree and many build-foo
> directories.  XEmacs supports this.  Clisp's configure basically does
> what ecl's configure does, but allows the user to name the directory.

Properly tuned, autotools projects allow you to build in any directory. 
Such a session usually looks like

> cd ecl
> mkdir build-linux
> cd build-linux
> ../configure --prefix=...
> make

Unfortunately ecl (and from your description probably xemacs and clisp) 
try to specify the build dir from within the configure script...  ECL 
currently bombs on VPATH builds like above.


> Second, the makefile dependencies are kind of lacking.  I added a hack
> to ecl/src/h/ecl.h.  But doing make in build doesn't recompile
> anything.  So then I changed build/ecl/ecl.h.  Still nothing gets
> rebuilt.  Ok.  I removed build/libeclmin.a.  Make again.  Nothing gets
> built.  Ok.  Remove c/print.o and c/numbers.o.  Finally, the things I
> want to rebuild actually do get rebuilt.  Yay!
>
> Is that the way it's supposed to work?  I know it's kind of hard to get
> all the dependencies right, but it sure is nice when it works.

All's not well.  Most ecl makefiles are generated by automake (which 
automates dependency tracking), but these ones aren't.  Would someone like 
help with a conversion?

- Daniel