Hello,
I think this is a bug, but perhaps it's intentional (as a deprecated feature) ?
It seems like "make dist" does not create the file ".tarball-version", which results in
"./build-aux/git-version-gen" returning UNKNOWN if used in a directory from a tarball (as opposed
to a directory from a git clone).
This doesn't effect the common use case of "./configure && make", because the version
string is hard-coded in "configure" .
But if some other script uses "./build-aux/git-version-gen", the returned value
is UNKNOWN.
The solution, I believe, is either:
1. stop using ".tarball-version" (it is only mentioned in "configure.ac" and
"GNUmakefile", both cases it is only read, not written).
Or,
2. generate ".tarball-version" (just like "coreutils" does), by adding this line to
"Makefile.am":
====
dist-hook: gen-ChangeLog
$(AM_V_GEN)echo $(VERSION) > $(distdir)/.tarball-version
====
Regards,
-gordon
