Re: automake 1.4 : --copy problem?

[Gary V. Vaughan <gary at oranda dot demon dot co dot uk>]

Hi David,

This is a long standing bug that has been fixed in release versions since 
automake-1.4-p1.  You can always find the latest automake release at 
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/ or any of the gnu mirrors.

Cheers,
	Gary.

On Monday 25 June 2001  6:07 pm, David Lee wrote:
> Background: we are trying to "autoconfiscate" the "linux-ha" package (for
> high availability work).
>
> With automake 1.4, I try
>    automake --foreign --add-missing --copy
>
> and get:
>
>    automake: configure.in: installing `./install-sh'
>        error while copying
>
>    automake: configure.in: installing `./mkinstalldirs'
>        error while copying
>
>    automake: configure.in: installing `./missing'
>        error while copying
>
> Despite these alarming-looking errors, these three copied files still end
> up in place OK: repeating the same command is then OK.
>
> If I leave off the "--copy", so that it creates symlinks instead of copies,
> it is OK:
>    automake: configure.in: installing `./install-sh'
>    automake: configure.in: installing `./mkinstalldirs'
>    automake: configure.in: installing `./missing'
> and I end up with three symlinks, as expected.
>
>
> Looking at the "automake" in my system, I see at line 6910:
>    elsif (! system ('cp', $am_dir . '/' . $file, $errfile))
>    {
>        $suppress = 0;
>        $trailer = "\n    error while copying\n";
>    }
>
> I suspect that the "!" should be absent (perhaps some confusion over the
> opposite numeric OK/fail conventions in perl vs. UNIX return codes).
>
>
> I have the feeling this must be a very well-known problem.  Is it?  If so,
> can you give me any background to it.
>
> It is possible that we can live with the problem for the time being
> (especially as work on the next version of automake is so well in hand).
> But information about it would be exceedingly useful, and any reasonable
> solutions would be a nice bonus.
>
> Thanks in advance.

-- 
  ())_.  Gary V. Vaughan     gary@(oranda.demon.co.uk|gnu.org)
  ( '/   Research Scientist  http://www.oranda.demon.co.uk        ,_())____
  / )=   GNU Hacker          http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool   \'      `&
`(_~)_   Tech' Author        http://sources.redhat.com/autobook    =`---d__/