Re: [PATCH] tests: avoid spurious new makefile-deps failure

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Jim.

On 02/12/2012 04:04 PM, Jim Meyering wrote:
> I noticed this an hour or two ago:
> 
>   FAIL: makefile-deps
>   ===================
>
> [SNIP]
>
> That's due to this new part of every Makefile.in:
> 
>     $ grep -C5 '^ *:' Makefile.in
>     am__make_dryrun = \
>       { \
>         am__dry=no; \
>         for am__flg in : $(MAKEFLAGS); do \
>           case $$am__flg in \
>             :) ;; \
>             *=*|--*) ;; \
>             *n*) am__dry=yes; break;; \
>           esac; \
>         done; \
>         test $$am__dry = yes; \
> 
>
Yes, I've seen this new failure.  But the best fix is IMHO to improve the
new 'am__make_dryrun' instead (which is proving a little to much brittle
in other contexts).  This spurious failure will probably disappear by
itself after such a fix, so I'd rather avoid tweaking the 'makefile-deps'
test at all.

> [SNIP]

> I hesitated to update copyright (what's automake's policy?)
> since I'm used to performing a mass-update in early January so
> that patches aren't constantly polluted with a distracting
> copyright-updating hunk throughout each year.
>
I think automake should begin to follow this simpler and more rational
policy as well.  Care to write a patch?

Thanks,
  Stefano