Request: support out of tree build

[nmschulte]

Currently, the configure script and Makefile assume they're being executed with the work tree as the current working directory. This isn't always the case, and supporting out-of-tree building is very useful; it supports automation, and it supports development, in the cases where the make targets change what is/is not installed.

I updated configure to support this, but failed to realize the project is not using Automake, and once I had, didn't attempt to update the Makefile. Certain tools (from the tools/ directory) are hardcoded in the Makefile rules.

[jbergstroem]

@nmschulte:
This isn't always the case

Out of curiosity. What is your use case where in-place builds doesn't work?

[nmschulte]

What is your use case where in-place builds doesn't work?

I am currently running up against issue npm/npm#10343, and I am building (and installing) multiple versions of node, and wishing to retain the build configuration/build. This is most trivially (and typically) done by building in a separate directory for each configuration.

[sxa]

@nmschulte Did you tag the wrong issue in your last comment? The one you've referenced is about updates to CONTRIBUTING.md

[nmschulte]

Did you tag the wrong issue in your last comment?

@sxa555, ah! I meant npm/npm#10343, indeed.

[bnoordhuis]

#10751 was closed and there haven't been requests from the community or enthusiasm from maintainers so I'm going to go ahead and close this out.

[refack]

P.S. configure can now be called from anywhere:

node/configure

Lines 38 to 39 in 9f4bf4c

	# If not run from node/, cd to node/.
	os.chdir(os.path.dirname(__file__) or '.')

and using ninja instead of make allows building from out of tree, so this is essentially implemented.

[nmschulte]

If you're looking to keep the labels accurate, I guess I should have clarified what I meant by out-of-tree: the artifacts of the build would be pwd local, so you could build different commits / patches to different build directories from the same source repository / directory.