Re: makeinfo removes info file without necessity

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Thu, 2 May 2002, Bruno Haible wrote:

> cd . \
>   && env LANG= LANGUAGE= /bin/sh 
> /packages/gettext/gettext-cvs/gettext-1/missing --run makeinfo   \
>        `echo gettext.texi | sed 's,.*/,,'`
> ./gettextize.texi:180: Cross reference to nonexistent node `autopoint 
> Invocation'.
> makeinfo: Removing output file 
> `/packages/gettext/gettext-cvs/gettext-1/doc/gettext.info' due to errors; use 
> --force to preserve.
> make: *** [gettext.info] Fehler 1
> 
> This removal of the info file is annoying. I was writing two documentation
> sections and wanted to check the first of them after writing it. I can
> easily afford to wait for this check until the second section is complete.
> But I need the browse the info file while writing every section - in order
> to meet the style of other material on the documentation, avoid redundancies
> etc.

IIRC, the standard Makefile's have a variable MAKEINFO.  You should be 
able to say "make MAKEINFO='makeinfo --force" to get what you want.

> This removal of the info file is also unnecessary. The "make" program
> already has logic to remove unsuccessful targets, which one can customize
> through the .PRECIOUS target.

makeinfo is not invoked by Make alone.  It can (and frequently is) 
invoked from the command line.

> For comparison, when gcc compiles a file, "gcc -c foobar.c", it does not
> remove foobar.o when there are syntax errors in foobar.c or one of its
> included files.

GCC doesn't produce foobar.o file at all in such cases, IIRC.