gmake clean, not clean enough?

FYI:

Last night I had some serious problems starting up postgresql after
recompiling it after a gmake clean.

A gmake cleandist was needed to get me a compiled version that
would startup properly, otherwise I'd get an error about being
unable to get my shared memory (no space on device).

The exact sequence of events was:

had an already compiled 7.0.

did a cvsup, then cvs up

gmake clean; rm config.cache
configure --enable-debug --enable-cassert
gmake; gmake install

*poof*

doing a "gmake cleandist" then repeating the steps above fixed it.

I'm not a big autoconf user (in fact i'm pretty clueless about it :) )
but shouldn't the 'clean' target be safe?

thanks,
--
-Alfred Perlstein - [bright(at)wintelcom(dot)net|alfred(at)freebsd(dot)org]
"I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."