Question

Is it possible to execute ‘make check’ prior to ‘make install’ and abort the install if check failed?

The behavior should be like this:

1. User runs ‘make install’
2. ‘make check’ is run.
3. If check failed install is not executed. Otherwise install is executed.

edit:

I got it working by overriding the install rule in the top level Makefile.am like this:

install: check install-recursive

But I would rather have a solution that does not override the install target.

Answer 1

You can hook into the install process using the install-exec-local or install-data-local targets:

install-exec-local: check