Re: FYI: removing more generated files

[Jim Meyering]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi Ralf,

> * Jim Meyering wrote on Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 10:28:42PM CET:
>> I was surprised to see diffs after running make with one of
>> the clean targets.  These were the culprits:
>>
>>      Remove generated files from version control.
>>      * INSTALL: Remove generated file.
>>      * lib/autoscan/autoscan.list: Remove generated file.
>
> Well, after this patch I get a build failure.  So I do
>   autoreconf -i
>
> which causes automake to install (an outdated copy of) `INSTALL'.
> This copy is not updated again later, though.  So unless
> doc/install.texi changes in-between the last time `autoreconf -i'
> is run, and `make dist', the distribution will carry the wrong file.

Good point.
I noticed that autoconf's INSTALL was built,
but forgot that the build procedure would pull
in an out of date copy.

I'll ensure that INSTALL is regenerated, one way or another,
at least for distribution.

> What's more, at least the Automake package, but also gnulib I think,

gnulib's srclist-update relies on directories that have
been checked out by the person running the script, so I don't
think that's a problem.

> pull INSTALL from Autoconf's viewcvs (Autoconf is the primary source for
> the `INSTALL' file).  It's likely that the location
>
>   http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/~checkout~/autoconf/autoconf/INSTALL
>
> needs to be changed anyways, as it points to a stale CVS repo, but it
> would be unhelpful if INSTALL were not available at all for fetching.