Most packages using "autoconf" allow separate source and build directories. Like so: mkdir valgrind-build cd valgrind-build /path/to/valgrind-3.8.1/configure --prefix=... make && make install This is useful for many reasons, like building one source tree in different ways (e.g. different platforms). I am attaching a patch that fixes this for the basic "make + make install". (Of course you still have to run "autogen.sh" from the source tree if you are building from SVN.) Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. cd /path/to/build/dir 2. /path/to/valgrind/source/configure 3. make Actual Results: Build failure because some files are not found. Expected Results: Successful build. Simple patch attached.
Created attachment 75116 [details] Fix configure + make in build directory distinct from source Simple patch to allow configure + make + make install to work from a separate build directory. I am also working on a follow-up patch for "make check" and "make regtest", but this seems a natural way to break it up.
Well "does not support" is a bit strong. It is meant to, it's just that it often breaks because it's a feature that none of the core developers uses so we usually only find out we've broken it after we release it...
I apologize if I titled the bug poorly. I only meant to report an issue and provide a patch, not to insult anybody. Fixing this for "make regtest" appears harder, since the Perl and shell scripts seem not to distinguish the source and build trees. I am willing to do the work, but only if the maintainers agree this is worth having. Do they?
(In reply to comment #3) > > Fixing this for "make regtest" appears harder, since the Perl and shell > scripts seem not to distinguish the source and build trees. I am willing to > do the work, but only if the maintainers agree this is worth having. Do > they? I think it's worth doing as being able to build out of tree is a reasonable expectation for many people. Will your patch also work for a cross-build? I'm not a autotool-wiz so am not able to say off-hand.
This was fixed a while back. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 445211 ***