VPATH builds work for me in current coreutils head. However, "distcheck" gails.
GNUmakefile exists in $(top_srcdir) but not the build directory. Distcheck does "make distcheck-hook". That's defined in the Makefile (from $(top_srcdir)/Makefile.am):- distcheck-hook: check-ls-dircolors $(MAKE) my-distcheck Unfortunately my-distcheck is only defined in GNUmakefile, not in Makefile. So this error results: [...] mkdir coreutils-6.10.69-e0b96-dirty/_build mkdir coreutils-6.10.69-e0b96-dirty/_inst chmod a-w coreutils-6.10.69-e0b96-dirty dc_install_base=`CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd coreutils-6.10.69-e0b96-dirty/_inst && pwd | sed -e 's,^[^:\\/]:[\\/],/,'` \ && dc_destdir="${TMPDIR-/tmp}/am-dc-$$/" \ && make distcheck-hook \ && cd coreutils-6.10.69-e0b96-dirty/_build \ && ../configure --srcdir=.. --prefix="$dc_install_base" \ \ && make \ && make dvi \ && make check \ && make install \ && make installcheck \ && make uninstall \ && make distuninstallcheck_dir="$dc_install_base" \ distuninstallcheck \ && chmod -R a-w "$dc_install_base" \ && ({ \ (cd ../.. && umask 077 && mkdir "$dc_destdir") \ && make DESTDIR="$dc_destdir" install \ && make DESTDIR="$dc_destdir" uninstall \ && make DESTDIR="$dc_destdir" \ distuninstallcheck_dir="$dc_destdir" distuninstallcheck; \ } || { rm -rf "$dc_destdir"; exit 1; }) \ && rm -rf "$dc_destdir" \ && make dist \ && rm -rf coreutils-6.10.69-e0b96-dirty.tar.gz \ && make distcleancheck make[1]: Entering directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/compile' dc=$(sed -n '/static.*ls_codes\[/,/};'/p ../coreutils/src/dircolors.c |sed -n '/^ *"/p'|tr , '\n'|sed 's/^ *//' |sed -n 's/^"\(..\)"/\1/p'|sort -u); \ ls=$(sed -n '/static.*indicator_name\[/,/};'/\p ../coreutils/src/ls.c |sed -n '/^ *"/p'|tr , '\n'|sed 's/^ *//' |sed -n 's/^"\(..\)"/\1/p'|sort -u); \ test "$dc" = "$ls" make my-distcheck make[2]: Entering directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/compile' make[2]: *** No rule to make target `my-distcheck'. make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/compile' make[1]: *** [distcheck-hook] Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/compile' make: *** [distcheck] Error 2 _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils