Bug 18978

Created attachment 20952 [details] [review]
fix distcheck target

The ChangeLog file is generated as part of 'make dist' from the git log.

No need to mention ChangeLog under EXTRA_DIST, this is automatic.

ChangeLog should not be mentioned under *CLEANFILES, not even MAINTAINERCLEANFILES, since in a source tree created from a release tarball there is no way to recreate that file.

This, however, creates the problem that the distcheck target fails due to the newly created ChangLog left over by distclean.

This problem is bypassed in various modules by either mentioning ChangeLog under DISTCLEANFILES or even CLEANFILES (problematic, see above).

Other modules effectively disable distcheck by an explicit dummy rule (equally problematic because that hides, e.g., a missing uninstall-hook).

The attached patch attempts to solve these problems by arranging that distcleancheck ignores the ChangeLog left over by distclean. Since distcleancheck_listfiles is documented in automake-1.10 and was already present in automake-1.8 this method should cause no problems.

The nice aspect is, that all this works behind the scene and requires no changes in the various modules (other that removing the workarounds mentioned above).