Debuild Error - Installing files in non-standard directory without getting errors

Question

I'm creating a debian package for my libspellcheck library, and it has turned out to be quite a hassle. After a lot of work, I have been able to eliminate all but one fatal error:

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/iandun/Desktop/deb-build/libspellcheck-1.15'
mkdir /home/iandun/Desktop/deb-build/libspellcheck-1.15/debian/tmp/usr/etc/
mkdir: cannot create directory `/home/iandun/Desktop/deb-build/libspellcheck-1.15/debian/tmp/usr/etc/': No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/iandun/Desktop/deb-build/libspellcheck-1.15'
dh_auto_install: make -j1 install DESTDIR=/home/iandun/Desktop/deb-build/libspellcheck-1.15/debian/tmp returned exit code 2
make: *** [binary] Error 29
dpkg-buildpackage: error: fakeroot debian/rules binary gave error exit status 2
debuild: fatal error at line 1350:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -D -us -uc failed

Here is my makefile:

#    SPELLCHECK Makefile
#    Copyright (C) 2013  Ian Duncan
#
#    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
#    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#    the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
#    (at your option) any later version.
#
#    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#    GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

all: libspellcheck spellcheck

spellcheck: meta.o spellcheck.o
    g++ -m32 -o spellcheck spellcheck.o meta.o libspellcheck.a

libspellcheck: checker.o
    ar -cvr libspellcheck.a checker.o

spellcheck.o: spellcheck.cpp
    g++ -m32 -Wall -c spellcheck.cpp

meta.o: meta.cpp
    g++ -m32 -Wall -c meta.cpp

checker.o: checker.cpp
    g++ -m32 -Wall -c checker.cpp

clean:
    rm -rf *o

install:
    mkdir $(DESTDIR)/usr/etc/
    cp libspellcheck.a $(DESTDIR)$(libdir)/libspellcheck.a
    cp spellcheck.h $(DESTDIR)$(includedir)/spellcheck.h
    cp spellcheck $(DESTDIR)$(bindir)/spellcheck
    cp english.dict $(DESTDIR)/usr/etc/english.dict
    chmod 777 $(DESTDIR)/usr/etc/english.dict


deinstall:
    rm /usr/lib/libspellcheck.a
    rm /usr/include/spellcheck.h
    rm /usr/bin/spellcheck
    rm /usr/etc/english.dict
    rm /usr/local/man/man1/spellcheck.1.gz

Now, I can see from the error that its having trouble creating the /usr/etc directory in the $DESTDIR folder. However, if I remove $DESTDIR, it will create /usr/etc in the / directory, which is not where I want it. I do not want to have to relocate my dictionary file, because that would create a lot of problems with code consistency and such. There must be a way to do this.

Answer 1

Your mkdir command should have a -p parameter: mkdir -p $(DESTDIR)/usr/etc/