Re: [PATCH] README-release improvements

[Jim Meyering]

Stefano Lattarini wrote:

> Hi everybody.  Just my two cents about this matter ...
>
> On Saturday 22 October 2011, Bruno Haible wrote:
>> Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
>> > >> Running the (potentially) outdated configure, to build a (potentially)
>> > >> outdated Makefile, which may very well rerun aclocal, automake, autoconf
>> > >> etc just to call the maintainer-clean rule, and then blow it all away
>> > >> in the next step with a bootstrap seems odd and torturous to me.
>> > >
>> > > The above may be a little wasteful.  But it is reliable and turn-key.
>> >
>> > No it isn't.
>>
>> I'm with Gary on this point.
>>
>> How about these steps?
>>
>>   make -k maintainer-clean # Clean up previous build artefacts
>>   ./configure
>>   make maintainer-clean    # Clean up previous build artefacts
>>   git checkout master
>>   git pull origin master   # don't try (perhaps fail) to pull other branches
>>   ./bootstrap              # rerun autotools explicitly on latest sources
>>   ./configure              # regenerate Makefile explicitly -"-   -"-
>>
> At this point, wouldn't it be simpler (and maybe safer) to clone the git
> repository in a new directory, and simply do "./bootstrap && ./configure"
> from there?

Hi Stefano,

That would be simpler, but might end up masking a problem in the long run.
I want to be sure that my usual build directory has the latest versions
of byproducts produced by tools like bison.

With an explicit "make maintainerclean" at least just before each release,
I can't accidentally continue to use an old generated file for too long.