In the toplevel Makefile, there is a variable set to force the creation
of the OUTPUTDIR...

  # sigh. this is a real hack - JRE/JDK packaging and the Plugin
  # require absolute paths - In order to get these, OUTPUTDIR must
  # exist now. This forces the creation. This is done here so that
  # it only happens once.
  dummy := $(shell $(MKDIR) -p $(OUTPUTDIR))


Using a fresh workspace, a 'gnumake clobber all' fails with an error
in sanityck...

  ERROR: OUTPUTDIR must be an existing directory. The current
         value of OUTPUTDIR is
         ./../build/solaris-sparc
         Please check your value of ALT_OUPUTDIR.

  ERROR: You must have write permissions to OUTPUTDIR. The
         current value of OUTPUTDIR is
         ./../build/solaris-sparc
         Either obtain these permissions or set ALT_OUPUTDIR.


Using a fresh workspace, clobber will remove $OUTPUTDIR cleanly, but
sanityck will fail in the 'all' processing as it needs it to be there.
However, in the case of an existing built workspace, $OUTPUTDIR cannot
be removed cleanly by clobber as files exist and errors are ignored.
In this case, sanityck passes. So, a fresh workspace build will fail
and a pre-existing built workspace will pass sanityck.

james.melvin@East 2001-02-18