Stefano Lattarini wrote: > On Sunday 16 October 2011, Jim Meyering wrote: >> >> Thanks. However, I run the syntax-checks solely from srcdir builds. >> For me at least, imposing the VPATH regimen for that rule is an added >> maintenance burden (and slight obfuscation) that brings little to no benefit. >> > Perfectly fine by me; I had pointed out the limitation only because I > wasn't sure whether it was a consciously accepted one, or the result > of an oversight. Your reply clarifies the matter perfectly. > > But I leave you with a micro-nit (stress on "micro"): wouldn't it be > worthwhile to add a comment somewhere stating that syntax-checks are > only expected to work from non-VPATH builds?
I don't want to preclude such improvements. If someone finds it annoying enough that "make syntax-check" does not work in a VPATH build, maybe they'll discover that nearly everything works, and fix the few nits. Then, as long as there's a distcheck (or related) rule that verifies syntax-check works also with VPATH builds, avoiding future regressions should be easy.
