Re: [Vala] automake 1.11.1: unable to build vala project out-of-tree

[Andrey Borzenkov <arvidjaar gmail com>]

On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 10:23 PM, Abderrahim Kitouni <a kitouni gmail com> wrote:
> Hi,
>                في س، 06-11-2010 عند 18:46 +0300 ، كتب Andrey Borzenkov:
> > I'm trying to rebuild systemd
> > (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd) from GIT. It is
> > using several programs built using vala; in-tree build is OK,
> > out-of-tree build fails:
> Automake assumes the .c files generated by vala are distributed with the
> source, and this isn't true when building from git. A solution is to do
> an in-tree build, make distclean, and re-run your out-of-tree build. The
> problem is you have to do this dance every time a vala file changes, so
> in practice, out-of-tree build isn't supported for development, only for
> release tarballs.

I am afraid it does not answer my question. Yes, .c generated from
.vala are disributed, but why automake deliberately emits code that
cannot built .c files from .vala in *source* directory?

The following crude change to final Makefile builds files in (srcdir)
when started from build directory:

$(srcdir)/src/systemadm.c: $(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp
        @if test -f $@; then :; else \
          rm -f $(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp; \
          $(am__cd) $(srcdir) && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS)
$(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp; \
        fi
$(srcdir)/src/systemd-interfaces.c: $(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp
        @if test -f $@; then :; else \
          rm -f $(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp; \
          $(am__cd) $(srcdir) && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS)
$(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp; \
        fi
$(srcdir)/systemadm_vala.stamp: $(systemadm_SOURCES)
        $(am__cd) $(srcdir) && \
        $(AM_V_VALAC)$(VALAC) $(systemadm_VALAFLAGS) $(VALAFLAGS) -C
$(systemadm_SOURCES)
        $(AM_V_at)touch $@

Do you see any immediate problem with this change? Could automake
generate similar code by default?

> <wishlist>
> A possible solution is to have automake (optionally) not distribute the
> generated .c files (so they end up in the build dir rather than the
> source dir) and that could be used in development if out-of-tree builds
> are needed.
> </wishlist>

While this is nice wishlist, it is rather orthogonal to discussed problem :)

Thank you!

-andrey