Re: proposed gnulib module 'configmake', plus use by 'localcharset'

[Jim Meyering]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello Jim,
>
> * Jim Meyering wrote on Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 05:52:02PM CEST:
>>
>> Here's one more little change I've applied.  Without it, rerunning
>> coreutils' bootstrap and building would not update a stale copy of
>> configmake.h, containing the now-invalid CONFIGMAKE_ prefixes.
>
>> -configmake.h:
>> +configmake.h: Makefile
>
> It should depend on $(top_builddir)/config.status, as I suggested
> earlier.  That's a wee bit more efficient in some cases, without
> compromising accuracy.

Hi Ralf,

Even if there is a tiny efficiency gain (I don't see it),
such a change would feel like obfuscation.

What's the benefit of making configmake.h depend on
$(top_builddir)/config.status directly, when there's already a
dependency like this?

  Makefile: $(top_builddir)/config.status

Besides, I think the shorter, variable-free dependency:

  configmake.h: Makefile

is clearer than this:

  configmake.h: $(top_builddir)/config.status