Checking the Distribution (automake)

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14.4 Checking the Distribution ¶

Automake also generates a distcheck rule that can be of help to ensure that a given distribution will actually work. Simplifying a bit, we can say this rule first makes a distribution, and then, operating from it, takes the following steps (in this order):

does a VPATH build (see Parallel Build Trees (a.k.a. VPATH Builds)), with the srcdir and all its content made read-only;
makes the printable documentation (with make dvi), if any,
runs the test suite (with make check) on this fresh build;
installs the package in a temporary directory (with make install), and runs the test suite on the resulting installation (with make installcheck);
checks that the package can be correctly uninstalled (by make uninstall) and cleaned (by make distclean);
finally, makes another tarball to ensure the distribution is self-contained.

All of these actions are performed in a temporary directory. The exact location and the exact structure of such a directory (where the read-only sources are placed, how the temporary build and install directories are named and how deeply they are nested, etc.) is to be considered an implementation detail, which can change at any time, so please do not rely on it.