maint.mk questions

[Eric Blake]

I'm considering switching m4 to use the maintainer-makefile module, and noticed 
some improvements that we should consider.  I ran 'diff -u 
{m4,gnulib/top}/maint.mk' and came up with these:

Since the announcement rule already uses $(gpg_key_ID), maint.mk is assuming 
that cfg.mk provided it.  Therefore, M4 uses it to also ensure that the correct 
key is used when tagging a release:

-VC-tag = git tag -s -m '$(VERSION)' -u $(gpg_key_ID)
+VC-tag = git tag -s -m '$(VERSION)'

For a VPATH build, news-date-check needs to reference $(srcdir)/NEWS, rather 
than plain NEWS.  There may be other sc_ checks broken in a VPATH build, but I 
spotted this one quickly in the diff:

-news-date-check: NEWS version-check
+news-date-check: NEWS
        today=`date +%Y-%m-%d`;                                         \
-   if head $(srcdir)/NEWS | grep '^\*.* $(VERSION_REGEXP) ('$$today')'     \
+ if head NEWS | grep '^\*.* $(VERSION_REGEXP) ('$$today')'   \

Likewise for vc-diff-check:

 vc-diff-check:
-   (CDPATH=; cd $(srcdir) && $(VC) diff) > vc-diffs || :
+ $(VC) diff > vc-diffs || :


There are still some coreutils-specific things, like:

+# Note that neither the binary, ginstall, nor the ].1 man page is installed.
+define my-instcheck
+  $(MAKE) prefix=$(pfx) install                              \
+    && test ! -f $(pfx)/bin/ginstall                 \

but which probably don't hurt other packages.


Another VPATH fix:

 announcement: NEWS ChangeLog $(rel-files)
-   @$(srcdir)/build-aux/announce-gen                               \
+ @./build-aux/announce-gen                                   \
            --release-type=$(RELEASE_TYPE)                              \
            --package=$(PACKAGE)                                        \
            --prev=$(PREV_VERSION)                                      \
            --curr=$(VERSION)                                           \
            --gpg-key-id=$(gpg_key_ID)                                  \
-       --news=$(srcdir)/NEWS                                       \
-       --bootstrap-tools=autoconf,automake,gnulib                  \
+     --news=NEWS                                                     \
+     --bootstrap-tools=autoconf,automake,bison,gnulib                \

Oh, and the --bootstrap-tools had better be something specified by cfg.mk, as 
m4 does not want bison in the list.


+# Use mv, if you don't have/want move-if-change.
+move_if_change ?= move-if-change

Should the maintainer-makefile module ensure that gnulib's build-aux/move-if-
change is copied into the package's build-aux directory, rather than assuming 
move-if-change is on PATH?  Or maybe we could write this as move_if_change ?= 
$(gnulib_dir)/build-aux/move-if-change?


M4 had some rules for creating deltas, such as m4-1.4.12-1.4.13.diff.gz; are 
these worth keeping around, or are we at the point now where it is easier to 
tell users to install the complete tarball rather than trying to apply a delta 
to a previous tarball?

-- 
Eric Blake