#917208 automake: maintainer-clean fails to clean dependencies

Package:
automake
Source:
automake-1.16
Submitter:
Aiden Woodruff
Date:
2018-12-24 03:57:04 UTC
Severity:
normal
#917208#5
Date:
2018-12-24 03:54:19 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

While creating a directory structure similar to the below:

project/
|-- Makefile.am
|-- configure.ac, etc.
+-- src/
    |-- Makefile.am
    |-- source.cc
    |-- source.h
    +-- main.cc
+-- test/
    |-- Makefile.am
    |-- thousand.cc
    +-- thousand.sh

Where source defined a class, main ran the main program, and thousand ran a test program directly interfacing with it.
thousand.sh was added to the check_SCRIPTS and TESTS, and running `make check` ran correctly.
However, running forms of `make *-clean` that removed the .deps folder caused error.
When the test Makefile is accessing .Po files in the src directory, they've already been deleted by the src Makefile.

I get this error:
  make[1]: Entering directory '/home/user/project/test'
  Makefile:517: ../src/.deps/source.Po: No such file or directory
  make[1]: *** No rule to make target '../src/.deps/source.Po'.  Stop.
  make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/user/project/test'
  Makefile:341: recipe for target 'maintainer-clean-recursive' failed
  make: *** [maintainer-clean-recursive] Error 1

Line 517 is:
  include ../src/$(DEPDIR)/grid.Po

I attempted switching the order of SUBDIRS, and both pass the check but neither clean correctly. However, when test/ is first, it removes src/.deps thus preventing src/Makefile to include the .Po file.