Re: revision control info in generated files

[Jef Driesen]

On 12/04/10 14:59, Peter Johansson wrote:
> Jef Driesen wrote:
> > mylib_la_SOURCES += version.c
> > mylib_HEADERS += version.h
> >
> > BUILT_SOURCES = version.h
> > EXTRA_DIST += $(srcdir)/version
> > CLEANFILES += version-t
> >
> > Took me a while to figure out the escaping of the @ symbol. It seems
> > to work fine, except that I would like to add "$(srcdir)/version.h.in"
> > as a dependency for "version.h". But when I add that, make distcheck
> > fails and I don't know why.
> >
> > The error I get is:
> >
> > make[3]: *** No rule to make target `../../src/version.h.in', needed
> > by `version.h'.  Stop.
>
> Looks like you're not distributing `version.h.in'. I would try adding
> `EXTRA_DIST = version.h.in'.

My version.h used to be generated in configure.ac (AC_CONFIG_FILES), and 
hence it was distributed automatically. Forgot about that detail when I 
moved it to the makefile. Silly mistake :-)

> Also, I would try avoid distributing
> `version.h', but not sure how to do that from top of my head.

Why would you not distribute it?

I think it's very useful that it gets distributed. Imagine someone 
downloads a tarball and wants to built it with the msvc compiler (which 
I support for my project). Since no files can be generated in that (non 
autotools) environment, that works fine *if* the generated files are 
distributed.

When I used to generate those files from configure.ac, they were 
distributed as well.