Re: -local vs. -hook?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Karl,

* Karl Berry wrote on Tue, Jun 03, 2008 at 07:26:20PM CEST:
>     But that text is what's already in the manual!  
> 
> I don't see it.  Maybe I missed it.  If so, sorry.

It was in the part your patch quoted.  Anyway, doesn't matter of course,
let's just improve it.

>     Maybe you can put your suggestions in a proposed patch, so that we
>     can avoid misunderstanding?
> 
> The first and last hunk are unrelated tiny fixes that I just happened to
> notice going through the source.  The rest adds the text about execution
> order.

Thanks.  I will apply this to master and branch-1-10, after these two
questions are addressed:

> @@ -9280,23 +9280,28 @@ clean-local:
>          -rm -rf testSubDir
>  @end example
>  
> -Older version of this manual used to show how to use
> address@hidden to install a file to some hard-coded
> -location, but you should avoid this.  (@pxref{Hard-Coded Install Paths})
> +You may be tempted to use @code{install-data-local} to install a file
> +to some hard-coded location, but you should avoid this.
> +(@pxref{Hard-Coded Install Paths})

Shouldn't the period be moved from after "this" to after the closing
parenthesis?

> +With the @code{-local} targets, there is no particular guarantee of
> +execution order; typically, they are run early, but with parallel
> +make, there is no way to be sure of that.

There isn't even consistency among the various -local targets in their
ordering wrt. other targets.  In fact, I wouldn't even know how many of
them are run at what time, so I'm a bit wary of the "typically"
statement.

[...]
> +In contrast, some rules also have a way to run another rule, called a
> address@hidden; these are always executed after their work is done.  The
> +hook is named after the principal target, with @samp{-hook} appended.
> +The targets allowing hooks are @code{install-data},
> address@hidden, @code{uninstall}, @code{dist}, and
> address@hidden
> +

Cheers, and thanks for the patch!
Ralf