On 09/03/2010 11:07 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
Why the Makefile is removed when I call the distclean target?
Because it is generated by configure
And more particularly, because Makefile is machine-dependent and must
NOT be part of a tarball. Remember, 'make distclean' is the process to
take you back to the state of the tarball.
So why we choose to keep the *.info files if they are generated
files?
Because they require a maintainer-only, unportable tool to be
generated. And since they do not depend on the architecture or
configuration of the system were they will be installed, the best
policy is to distribute them in their already-processed form.
Indeed, since *.info files are machine-invariant, it is a courtesy to
the user to let them use a pre-built version rather than requiring that
they have the same maintainer-only tools for generating them.
The same argument goes for *.c files generated from *.y grammars - the
*.c file may be generated, but it is machine-independent, therefore, it
makes sense to distribute it pre-built in the tarball so that users need
not have flex and bison available.
--
Eric Blake ebl...@redhat.com +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
