Hi John, * John Calcote wrote on Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 08:25:22PM CEST: > Since the current implementation of the JAVA primary is not managing > individual source/object dependencies (something that's difficult to > do anyway because of inner and anonymous class definitions), would > it not be prudent to remove the restriction regarding needing to > specify all source files individually in Makefile.am -- at least for > the JAVA primary?
I guess that would be possible, at least technically. > Builds in the Java world generally specify source files found within > a subtree using a globbing mechanism, with optionally specified > inclusions and exclusions. And the layout of that subtree defines > the packages to which classes belong. Would it not be fair to say > that all files found matching the source specification within a > specified subtree are distributed within the directory layout to > which they belong? In other words, distribution (for Java sources > only) would include the same set of files specified in the Java > source globbing pattern. The issue is that it goes against one principle otherwise followed throughout Automake: the user cannot have "junk" files in her source nor her build tree that match the patterns. At least for some users, this is a feature; I for one have unfinished files in my source trees, or even in a version control branch. I do admit though that distributed version control makes this less relevant. > I recognize that this is a significant deviation from existing > Autotools methodology, but I'm not sure we can make any real forward > progress in Autotools Java builds without making a few such > concessions. We can have new semantics; in case of doubt we can enable them under a new Automake option only. > A problem I foresee is providing the globbing functionality to > makefile commands. We'd almost need a new auxiliary script (like > install-sh) to generate lists of files from such glob specs. If it's not very complex it can be done in a makefile variable scriptlet. I haven't understood the JAR and WAR notes you wrote about. Cheers, Ralf
