744750 - Build broken on Linux: "*** No rule to make target `.mkdir.done', needed by `configure'. Stop."

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 837754

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Changeset 1f093ab9df77 caused my Linux build to start failing.

[roc@worship mozilla-central]$ mkdir obj-ff-opt2
[roc@worship mozilla-central]$ MOZCONFIG=~/.mozconfig-ff-opt gmake -C obj-ff-opt2 -j10 -f ../client.mk
gmake: Entering directory `/home/roc/mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2'
gmake -f ../client.mk realbuild
gmake[1]: Entering directory `/home/roc/mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2'
gmake[2]: Entering directory `/home/roc/mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2'
gmake[2]: *** No rule to make target `.mkdir.done', needed by `configure'.  Stop.
gmake[2]: Leaving directory `/home/roc/mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2'
gmake[1]: *** [Makefile] Error 2
gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/home/roc/mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2'
gmake: *** [build] Error 2
gmake: Leaving directory `/home/roc/mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2'

(Changeset 106c7696d3b7 works fine.)

[roc@worship mozilla-central]$ gmake -v
GNU Make 3.82
Built for x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu

Comment 1

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Looks like something is causing ./.mkdir.done to collapse to ".mkdir.done" which then fails to match the %/.mkdir.done rule.

Comment 2

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Attachment: fix

I don't understand why I get this error and other systems don't.

This patch makes my build work, but spews tons of warnings:
../config/makefiles/autotargets.mk:33: warning: overriding recipe for target `.mkdir.done'
../config/makefiles/autotargets.mk:33: warning: ignoring old recipe for target `.mkdir.done'

Comment 3

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

My Windows builds are broken with the same error.

Comment 4

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Maybe my setup is unusual? In comment #0, mozilla-central is the directory holding the sources, and mozilla-central/obj-ff-opt2 is an objdir. You can see the command line I use to build.

Comment 5

[Joey Armstrong [:joey]]

The underlying problem is a few makefile targets {using alternate paths based on os} are attempting to: "mkdir ." and there is not a library rule in place to handle the condition.

This patch can be applied to convert the cryptic failure into a warning:
   http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742835

Another bug is open to cleanup the dot references and morph the warning into an error.