issues when "ragel" is missing

[sandynomad]

During configuration (./configure) a Makefile variable is defined:

RAGEL = sh m4/missing-dev-prog.sh ragel

This variable is executed in the sub-directory drmaa_utils however in this directory there is no "m4" directory thus if ragel is missing then the following error is reported during compilation:

$ make
make  all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/wickhagj/git/slurm-drmaa/drmaa_utils'
Making all in drmaa_utils
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/wickhagj/git/slurm-drmaa/drmaa_utils/drmaa_utils'
sh m4/missing-dev-prog.sh ragel  -o timedelta.c timedelta.rl
sh: m4/missing-dev-prog.sh: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [timedelta.c] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/wickhagj/git/slurm-drmaa/drmaa_utils/drmaa_utils'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/wickhagj/git/slurm-drmaa/drmaa_utils'
make: *** [all] Error 2

The simplest change is to apply this patch:

--- drmaa_utils/configure.ac.orig	2021-01-04 21:07:26.423428000 +0300
+++ drmaa_utils/configure.ac	2021-01-04 21:13:49.098388000 +0300
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
 # code generation tools:
 AC_PROG_YACC
 AX_GPERF
-AC_CHECK_PROGS([RAGEL], [ragel], [sh m4/missing-dev-prog.sh ragel])
+AC_CHECK_PROGS([RAGEL], [ragel], [sh ../m4/missing-dev-prog.sh ragel])
 
 # reStructuredText processing:
 AX_DOCUTILS

however ideally the configuration step should fail if ragel is missing.

Also, in drmaa-utils the Makefile.am includes the conditional:

if DEVELOPER_MODE
CLEANFILES = $(BUILT_SOURCES)
endif

The file timedelta.c was never removed using a "make clean" or "make distclean". This caused narrowing down the ragel issue to take a little longer than usual due to unexpected behaviour.

[natefoo]

Thanks for digging into this, I always wondered about this myself but never looked in to the cause (it's not a problem as long as ragel is installed when you run the autotools generation, which you have to have in order to generate the source dist successfully in the first place).

[natefoo]

The file timedelta.c was never removed using a "make clean" or "make distclean". This caused narrowing down the ragel issue to take a little longer than usual due to unexpected behaviour.

I believe this behavior is correct, since this source is generated with the distribution tarball. If make clean or make distclean removed it without --enable-development, then it would break regular usage of the source distribution.