[bug #68372] out-of-tree builds without dependency tracking can fail

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Tue, 19 May 2026 13:19:49 -0400 (EDT)
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.printing.groff.bugs
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Update of bug #68372 (group groff):

                Category:                    None => General
              Item Group:                    None => Build/Installation
                  Status:                    None => Confirmed
                 Summary: Out-of-tree builds without dependency tracking fail
often => out-of-tree builds without dependency tracking can fail

    _______________________________________________________

Follow-up Comment #1:

(I slightly edited Ross's comment to make Savannah auto-hyperlink ticket
references.) 

[comment #0 original submission:]
> Related to bug #68370 but whereas that is missing dependencies, this is
> missing mkdir calls.

Thanks for the report.
 
> If you do an out-of-tree build with dependency tracking disabled (configure
> --disable-dependency-tracking) then the build tree doesn't have a shadow of
> the source tree created by configure.

Right.  My understanding is that distributors frequently build _groff_ in this
configuration.  I recall having this discussion with someone not long ago, but
cannot scare up a _recent_ reference on the _groff_ mailing lists.  (There's a
patch from Colin Watson, who packages _groff_ for Debian, in 2018.)  Possibly
the conversation I'm thinking of happened elsewhere.

> This then exposes rules which don't create directories that they're about to
> write into:
> 
> $ make src/libs/libgroff/version.cpp
> echo 1.24.1 > .version-t && mv .version-t .version
> /bin/bash: line 1: src/libs/libgroff/version.cpp.tmp: No such file or
> directory
> make: *** [Makefile:20242: src/libs/libgroff/version.cpp] Error 1

I can reproduce this with the following procedure.


 5632  2026-05-19 12:15:38-0500 tar xf groff-1.24.1.tar.gz 
 5633  2026-05-19 12:15:39-0500 cd groff-1.24.1
 5634  2026-05-19 12:15:41-0500 mkdir build
 5635  2026-05-19 12:15:42-0500 cd build
 5636  2026-05-19 12:15:49-0500 ../configure --disable-dependency-tracking
 5637  2026-05-19 12:16:28-0500 make src/libs/libgroff/version.cpp 

 
> $ make font/devpdf/SS
> GEN      font/devpdf/SS
> cp: cannot create regular file 'font/devpdf/SS': No such file or directory
> 
> Same problem, font/devpdf does not exist yet.

And this too, just as you showed.


    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?68372>

_______________________________________________
Message sent via Savannah
https://savannah.gnu.org/
signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 228 B)