Re: FIXED: Building outside source tree directory fails

[Bob Proulx]

René,

Glad to have helped.  Karl mentioned to me in a different message that
he had commited your change to the source and it will appear in a
future version of the package.  He also mentioned that he found the
same problem in another package and fixed it there too.  So thanks
again for the report.  It fixed two packages!

> As matter of fact, '$(srcdir)' was the variable I was looking for. I
> am scrutinising GNU Hello because I want to use it as a raw model
> for my own project that follows the GNU style.

In addition to $(srcdir) there is $(builddir) and $(distdir) and all
of those have a top_ version to be the top of tree.  $(top_srcdir),
$(top_builddir), $(top_distdir).  I tend to only need to use the
srcdir and top_srcdir variables.  In deep hierarchies I sometimes need
$(top_builddir).

A good tutorial on using the autotools from one of the maintainers:

  http://www-src.lip6.fr/homepages/Alexandre.Duret-Lutz/autotools.html

Also a good resource is the GNU Coding Standards.  This is the policy
document for official GNU software.  But also useful for other
software as a generally good reference.

  http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/

Good luck!

Bob