On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 19:45:26 +0200 Simon Sobisch <simonsobisch@xxxxxx> wrote: > HACKING says: > If you build from VCS the tools in the first 4 lists are always > needed. > > For running build_aux/bootstrap (necessary after VCS checkout) / > reconfigure: > o autoconf 2.64 ... > I'm quite sure the part > *running build_aux/bootstrap (necessary after VCS checkout)* > should be more obvious. > > Can you please suggest a patch/new version? I suggest "make" work as directed. The user shouldn't have to read README to read HACKING to run build_aux/bootstrap to compile the code. Below is a script that produces a useful tarstamp.h: [snip] #!/bin/sh export LC_ALL=C while read name when do printf "#define %s %s\n" $name "$when" done<<EOF COB_TAR_DATE "$(date -u +'%b %d %Y %T') UTC" COB_NUM_TAR_DATE $(date -u +'%Y%m%d') COB_NUM_TAR_TIME $(date -u +'%H%M%S') EOF [pins] add it to the root as "tarstamp.gen". Refer to it as $(top_srcdir)/tarstamp.gen in Makefile.am. Add a rule to Makefile.am $(top_builddir)/tarstamp: $(top_srcdir)/tarstamp.gen $^ > $@~ && mv $@~ $@ Make make sure tarstamp.h is a prerequisite for anything that needs it. Remove any other generation logic from Makefile.am and bootstrap. How does that sound? --jkl