"man/nm-settings%.xml" really should depend on "common.ent".
The reason is that XSL files like "man/nm-settings.xsl" include
"common.ent".
The previous code already tried to express that, but for some
reasons this dependency was not honored. Fix that.
However, that uncovers another problem with gtk-doc.make. If we do
that without the workaround for "docs/api/Makefile.am", then
$ ./autogen.sh && make V=1 SHELL='sh -x' distcheck
breaks.
The reason is not clear to me. The new dependency leads to rebuild
"man/nm-settings-keyfile.xml". But that is worse, somehow the file
"$(top_srcdir)/man/nm-settings-keyfile.xml" ends up being read-only.
Afterwards, gtk-doc.make does
setup-build.stamp:
-$(GTK_DOC_V_SETUP)if test "$(abs_srcdir)" != "$(abs_builddir)" ;
then \
files=`echo $(SETUP_FILES) $(DOC_MODULE).types`; \
if test "x$$files" != "x" ; then \
for file in $$files ; do \
destdir=`dirname $(abs_builddir)/$$file`; \
test -d "$$destdir" || mkdir -p "$$destdir"; \
test -f $(abs_srcdir)/$$file && \
cp -pf $(abs_srcdir)/$$file $(abs_builddir)/$$file || true;
\
done; \
fi; \
fi
$(AM_V_at)touch setup-build.stamp
so that the files in build dir are also read-only. Then, make distcheck
goes ahead and builds the files once again, which fails.
You are welcome to understand why this workaround is necessary. Please
then create a better fix.