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Hash : a22717df
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Date : 2012-06-15T11:13:00
missing: do not touch timestamps; only warn for out-of-date files Before this change, the missing script had a twofold role: - it warned the user if some required maintainer tools was missing, or too old; - in such a case, it tried to "fix" the timestamp of the files that should have been rebuilt by that tool (without actually updating the file contents, of course), to allow the build to continue. The second capability used to be quite useful in the days when most projects committed files generated by maintainer-only tools in their VCS repository (today the trend is not to keep such generated files VCS-committed anymore). In such a setup, the "timestamp-fixing" capability of 'missing' was quite useful, in that it allowed users lacking some required maintainer tool to build from a VCS checkout in the face of skewed timestamps (as could have been caused by "cvs update" or "git checkout"). But then, when the automatic remake rules kicked in due to the generated files being *actually out-of-date* (e.g., because the user had modified 'configure.ac' but lacked a modern-enough autoconf to rebuild it), that behaviour of 'missing' caused the same problem that plagued AM_MAINTAINER_MODE; i.e., the user would get non-dependable builds and inconsistent statuses of the build tree -- changes to source files don't reflect on generated files, and this can be very confusing and cause hard-to-spot errors). So we now believe that the best approach to deal with timestamp-related issues is not to have 'missing' to "automagically" try to resolve them (with all the risk and brittleness entailed), but rather to suggest those projects still keeping generated files committed in their VCS to provide a proper (say) 'fix-timestamp.sh' script that touches the timestamp of the checked-out files, to ensure no spurious rebuild will be triggered. As a bonus, such a script can be more aware of the particularities, nooks and corner cases of a project, and thus more reliable than the old 'missing' script. An example of this approach is offered by GNU awk (release 4.0.1, Git tag 'gawk-4.0.1', commit b85b04e8). The GNU awk maintainers commit the Autotools-generated files (configure, Makefile.in, etc.) and other generated in the project's Git repository, but offer a useful script 'bootstrap.sh' that fixes the timestamps of those files, to ensure no useless remake is triggered in a freshly cloned repository: #! /bin/sh # bootstrap.sh --- touch relevant files to avoid out-of-date issues # in Git sandboxes touch aclocal.m4 find awklib -type f -print | xargs touch sleep 1 touch configure sleep 2 touch configh.in sleep 1 touch test/Maketests find . -name Makefile.in -print | xargs touch touch doc/*.info touch po/*.gmo touch po/stamp-po touch awkgram.c touch command.c touch version.c A similar, simplified script is also reported as an example in the manual. * NEWS: Update. * doc/automake.texi (Auxiliary Programs, maintainer-mod): Update. (CVS): Do not suggest that 'missing' can "automagically" fix botched timestamp due to a "cvs update"; this isn't true anymore. Give an example of a custom 'fix-timestamp.sh' script that can be used to obtain the same effect (in a slightly more laborious but also more explicit and less brittle way). Fix some minor typos and improper wordings while we are at it. * lib/missing: Basically rewritten to implement the new semantics. As a side effect (one of the several), the '--run' option is no more required nor recognized. * m4/missing.m4 (AM_MISSING_HAS_RUN): Enhance the test on '$MISSING' to ensure it actually provides the new semantics (by trying the new "witness" option '--is-lightweight'). * lib/am/distdir.am (distdir): No need anymore to check for "bad" distributed man pages that were actually dummy stubs generated by the 'missing' script. * t/missing4.sh: Rename ... * t/remake-aclocal-version-mismatch.sh: ... like this. * t/missing2.sh: Rename ... * t/missing-version-mismatch.sh: ... like this, and adjust to the new semantics. * t/missing3.sh: Adjust to the new semantics. * t/man4.sh: Remove as obsolete. * t/missing.sh: Likewise. * t/missing5.sh: Likewise. * t/txinfo30.sh: Likewise. * t/man6.sh: Adjust grepping checks. * t/remake6.sh: Likewise. * t/list-of-tests.mk: Adjust. Signed-off-by: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini@gmail.com>
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