Re: [PATCH] maint.mk: fix VPATH issues

[Jim Meyering]

Akim Demaille wrote:
> This time, it's gnu-web-doc-update.  I can't fully test it
> now, as I had not defined manual_title in v2.5.1 :(
>
> From bc0749a1d9c7d8b05bbe49d45205a2e5576678bd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Akim Demaille <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2012 16:17:36 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] gnu-web-doc-update: VPATH builds.
>
> * build-aux/gnu-web-doc-update (--builddir): New option.
> Revamp the handling of options.
> Prefer $(...) to `...`.
> Don't pass --tmpdir=. to mktemp, it is useless given that we specify
> the template, and it is GNU mktemp specific.
> Prefer set -e to long series of &&.
> Restore the initial git branch, not "master".
> Properly initialize submodules (don't rely only on bootstrap)
> * top/README-release: Update instructions for gnu-web-doc-update.
...

Thanks.  Those all look like fine changes.
One question:

...
> @@ -89,15 +110,23 @@ trap 'exit $?' 1 2 13 15
>  # We must build using sources for which --version reports the
>  # just-released version number, not some string like 7.6.18-20761.
>  # That version string propagates into all documentation.
> +set -e
>  git checkout -b $tmp_branch v$version
> -ok=0
> -./bootstrap && ./configure && make && make web-manual && ok=1
> -test $ok = 1 || exit 1
> -
> -tmp=$(mktemp -d --tmpdir=. web-doc-update.XXXXXX) || exit 1
> +git submodule update --recursive
> +./bootstrap

I like to avoid using pwd, because it can fail (admittedly unlikely, but...).
Did you consider just doing the "cd" and those four commands in a sub-shell,
instead?

> +srcdir=$(pwd)
> +cd "$builddir"
> +  ./config.status --recheck
> +  ./config.status
> +  make
> +  make web-manual
> +cd "$srcdir"
> +set +e
> +
> +tmp=$(mktemp -d web-doc-update.XXXXXX) || exit 1
>  ( cd $tmp \
>      && cvs -d address@hidden:/webcvs/$pkg co $pkg )
> -rsync -avP doc/manual/ $tmp/$pkg/manual
> +rsync -avP "$builddir"/doc/manual/ $tmp/$pkg/manual