Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Auto-generated source files

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

    Miles> A leading + is sort of a `less temporary' file, but still
    Miles> not part of the source (seems to be used for caches and the
    Miles> like).

Leading `+' means "precious", according to =tagging-methods.  That
means that there is a user-defined meaning for the file; it is not
part of the source (and so should not be added to the repository, nor
recursively examined if they are directories), but it is not junk,
either.  Essentially, "trust me, arch, I know what I'm doing".

    Miles> A leading = means something like `this is special' (often
    Miles> used for meta-info).

I can't figure this out, either.  I guess it's a loosely defined
convention for meta-info, but some of this is used by arch (eg,
=README in archive category directories or =tagging-method in {arch}
or =id in .arch-ids), and others are used by users (eg, =README or
=INSTALL) in source directories.

There are two exceptions which are important.  Mostly names with
leading `=' in source directories are also source, but "=build" and
"=install" are treated specially.  They're precious.


So one approach to Thomas's .ui->.java problem is to simply copy the
whole tree (perhaps as a symlink farm or by using the build system's
VPATH feature if available) to $PROJECT_ROOT/=build.

Personally, working a lot with Emacs Lisp and Python, both of which
like to compile to ${SRCNAME}c (and in Python's case, to ${SRCNAME}o
as well) in the current directory, and with gnuplot (likes to produce
.tex files), I find the "use a separate build directory or lose"
policy a mild annoyance.


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