This is weird... Docs are being built during make check. I have to include MAKEINFO and HELP2MAN in the make check recipe.
My driver scripts looks like: echo "**********************" echo "Testing package" echo "**********************" MAKE_FLAGS=("check" "V=1" "MAKEINFO=true" "HELP2MAN=true") if ! "$MAKE" "${MAKE_FLAGS[@]}" then echo "**********************" echo "Failed to test Bison" echo "**********************" exit 1 fi But the result is: ... make check-recursive make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1' Making check in po make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1/po' make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'check'. make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1/po' Making check in runtime-po make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1/runtime-po' make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'check'. make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1/runtime-po' Making check in gnulib-po make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1/gnulib-po' make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'check'. make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1/gnulib-po' Making check in . make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1' LC_ALL=C tests/bison --version >doc/bison.help.tmp LC_ALL=C tests/bison --help | \ sed -e 's,^Usage: .*/bison \[OPTION\],Usage: bison [OPTION],g' \ -e '/translation bugs/d' >>doc/bison.help.tmp ./build-aux/move-if-change doc/bison.help.tmp doc/bison.help rm -f lib/liby.a ar cr lib/liby.a lib/main.o lib/yyerror.o ranlib lib/liby.a true \ --include=./doc/bison.x \ --output=doc/bison.1.tmp tests/bison if sed 's/^\(\.TH[^"]*"[^"]*"[^"]*\)"[^"]*"/\1/' doc/bison.1 >doc/bison.1a.tmp 2>/dev/null && \ sed 's/^\(\.TH[^"]*"[^"]*"[^"]*\)"[^"]*"/\1/' doc/bison.1.tmp | cmp doc/bison.1a.tmp - >/dev/null 2>&1; then \ touch doc/bison.1; \ else \ mv doc/bison.1.tmp doc/bison.1; \ fi sed: can't read doc/bison.1.tmp: No such file or directory mv: cannot stat 'doc/bison.1.tmp': No such file or directory Makefile:9562: recipe for target 'doc/bison.1' failed make[2]: *** [doc/bison.1] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1' Makefile:8278: recipe for target 'check-recursive' failed make[1]: *** [check-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jwalton/Build-Scripts/bison-3.5.1' Makefile:8725: recipe for target 'check' failed make: *** [check] Error 2 ********************** Failed to test Bison ********************** It is very unusual.