CMake class removes "install" directory

[Ferruck]

Here the CMake class removes the install directory before creating a new one and building. The Autotools class does nothing alike. Is either one of these an oversight or is there a reasoning behind that?

The reason I'm asking is that I myself have a class that creates files in the install directory which are then removed by the CMake class. I'd rather avoid putting this into a function that I have to remember to call in each recipe after building, if possible.

[jkloetzke]

It's an optimistic optimization in the autotools class. But actually it's a bug. The rationale is the following: "make install" will just copy the files to the "install" directory. If you work on a package and build it incrementally the files will keep piling up and removed files will still be around. I had this issue some time in the past and since then the "install" directory is always removed.

Now practically nobody does develop on autotools based packages because this requires a run of autoreconf or friends. Hence the safety net is not really required. But strictly speaking the rm -rf install should also be in the autotools class.