Re: Shouldn't the definition of maintainer-clean be changed?

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello Bob,

On Sat, Mar 17, 2007 at 10:44:42AM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> First off let me say that I was perfectly aware of the standards for
> make maintainer-clean when I posted my response to that message.
> There is no standard target to perform the desired operation.  That
> poster had a very particular set of needs.  My suggestion there did
> not in any way reflect a "standard" use of automake or use of the gnu
> standards.  It was a very targeted (ab)use of the tool.  I knew that.

I'm sorry that I accused you and Ralf that you misinterpret the
target; I was wrong in both cases.

In the course of the preceding year or two, whenever I heard about
mainatiner-clean, it was misinterpreted this way.
(That's why I reacted so hysterically when I saw your hint on the
automake list.)

I cannot agree that the need is "very particular".  Virtually every
projects' CVS build instructions start with point 1. "get a clean
checkout".  And if the build does not work, the user wants to get back
to that clean checkout.

I was afraid that if we let the rumour spread, this will soon become
the de-facto standard for half of the projects, and the name
"maintainer-clean" will no longer have any meaning.

So I wanted to see how do the standard makers feel about it.

> It would be good to have some improved functionality in this area.
> See also my posting asking for a clean target for generated source
> files.  [All it needs is someone to actually do the work. :-)]
> 
>   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2007-03/msg00001.html

OK, so if want to do something about this, I should first implement
--clean, and then start recommending it as the right tool for the
purpose.


Finally, a minor clarification:
> > If `make maintainer-clean', then the GNU Standards should be changed
> > to reflect this.  The obvious disadvantage is that if the
> > bootstrap&&configure does not finish, maintainer-clean is not usable.
> 
> If configure does not finish then no Makefile based target is usable.
> Which may have been your point.  But I think it is safe to assume a
> working system and in an working system configure will finish and
> Makefile targets will be available.

It is common that a configure script ends with an error message that
``package foo is needed to build this project''.

(Yes, these configure scripts are badly written, as the AC_MSG_ERROR
is meant to notify about ``an error that prevents `configure' from
completing,'' as the manual says.  Yet is is often used in situations
which prevent the build from completing.)

So, in practice, one has to collect all of the pre-requisites of the
projects, before a working Makefile is available.

Thanks,
        Stepan Kasal