Autotools not installing directories (appends ./ to directories only) - c

Question

I am working with autotools to install several doc directories, however, it is adding an unneeded prefix to the directories in question:
I run
autoreconf -f;automake; ./configure; make; sudo make install
Error:
test -z "/usr/local/share/opendiameter/docs" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/opendiameter/docs"
/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 docs/msvc-solution-usage.txt docs/development_policy.txt docs/coding_style.txt docs/bugtracking-diagram.pdf ./docs/framework/ ./docs/libdiameter ./docs/libdiametereap ./docs/libdiameternasreq ./docs/libdiametermip4 ./docs/libeap ./docs/libpana ./docs/nasreq opendiameter.kdevelop tools/getopt.patch tools/getopt1.patch autogen.sh RELEASE README '/usr/local/share/opendiameter/docs'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/framework/'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/libdiameter'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/libdiametereap'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/libdiameternasreq'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/libdiametermip4'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/libeap'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/libpana'
/usr/bin/install: omitting directory `./docs/nasreq'
</code>
And here is the Makefile.am - NOTE that I have tried $(top_srcdir) as a prefix to the docs/
docdir = $(prefix)/share/opendiameter/docs
doc_DATA = docs/msvc-solution-usage.txt \
docs/development_policy.txt \
docs/coding_style.txt \
docs/bugtracking-diagram.pdf \
docs/framework/ \
docs/libdiameter \
docs/libdiametereap \
docs/libdiameternasreq \
docs/libdiametermip4 \
docs/libeap \
docs/libpana \
docs/nasreq \
opendiameter.kdevelop \
tools/getopt.patch \
tools/getopt1.patch \
autogen.sh \
RELEASE \
README
SUBDIRS_LIBS = libodutl \
libdiamparser \
libdiameter \
libdiametermip4 \
libeap \
libpana \
libdiametereap \
libdiameternasreq
SUBDIRS_APPS = applications
SUBDIRS_DOCS = docs
SUBDIRS = $(SUBDIRS_LIBS) $(SUBDIRS_APPS)
DIST_SUBDIRS = $(SUBDIRS_LIBS) $(SUBDIRS_APPS) $(SUBDIRS_DOCS)
includedir = $(prefix)/include/opendiameter
include_HEADERS = $(top_srcdir)/include/framework.h \
$(top_srcdir)/include/aaa_parser_api.h \
$(top_srcdir)/include/aaa_global_config.h \
$(top_srcdir)/include/aaa_dictionary_api.h \
$(top_srcdir)/include/aaa_parser_defs.h \
$(top_srcdir)/include/resultcodes.h
dist-hook:
rm -rf `find $(distdir) -name CVS`

Answer 1

You are assuming that _DATA knows how to deal with directories. It does not. It deals with files.
I'm assuming that you want the directory structure kept in the install.
In order to layout a directory structure you'll need to do something like this for each directory:
docdir = $(datadir)/opendiameter/docs
docframeworkdir = $(docdir)/framework
dist_doc_DATA = docs/msvc-solution-usage.txt \
...
dist_docframework_DATA = \
docs/framework/foo \
docs/framework/bar
Basically, you need to create a destination installation directory (like docframeworkdir)
and list out the files in it (like dist_docframework_DATA). If the toplevel (e.g. docs/framework) directories also contain directories (e.g. docs/framework/nest), you'll need to create destinations for those also if the have files you want to install.
If this is too tedious, you can write an install data hook to copy directories, which might be easier.
If you don't want the directory structure, you can add the list of files in docs to dist_doc_DATA. You can also write an install data hook for this as well.