Re: dependency system

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Tom" == Tom Tromey <address@hidden> writes:

 >>>>>> "Olaf" ==   <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

 Olaf> while the clobbering of the make output is a considerable
 Olaf> problem -- it's hardly possible to see what is beeing done or to
 Olaf> find compiler messages among all the garbage :-( )

 Tom> I agree, that's a problem.

I'm concerned by the fact that Automake shows the call to the
`depcomp', but not the calls done by `depcomp' (i.e. the real
calls to the compiler).

I think the former is nice to debug Automake or depcomp, but the
user really needs the latter (so he can reproduce the
compilation commands issued by depcomp from the shell if
needed).

Several times I've been annoyed by the fact the `depcomp' adds
flags to the command line but doesn't show them.
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/automake/2001-12/msg00065.html is
one case where Libtool is confused by these extra arguments, and
it's hard to figure what happens until you realize that extra
parameters have been secretly appended.

Personally, I'd prefer that Automake generates Makefiles that
shows *every* calls.  This would make debuging (at any level)
and bug reporting easier.

Maybe Automake could support a trick similar to PRE_INSTALL and
POST_INSTALL to hide most of the output.  E.g. if the user set
`VERBOSE=:' in the Makefile.am or on the command line, only the
final calls to the compiler are printed.  (Or do the converse:
verbose output on request.)

 Tom> I personally always compile in Emacs.  Then I don't have to look for
 Tom> the output, I just let C-x ` do it for me.  But I realize this doesn't
 Tom> work for everybody.

During development I usually compile with `-Werror', this way I
can never miss a warning and they are easy to locate (always in
the last lines).

[...]

-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz