Hi Paul,
How about the attached Automake patch instead? Thanks much. Clever. Seems good to me. Can you install it in am, please? Perhaps it is worth a comment that it's desired to create the file with $cp_umask (not just cp-ing it), in order in ensure $dsttmp is writable, else strip can fail. Otherwise there is no obvious reason for the complicated sequence. At least if I'm understanding correctly what you are doing ... --thanks, karl.
