On 2014-09-19 11:23 -0700, Jack Bates wrote:
[...]
> Now if a file is removed from the repository but not from a Makefile.am
> the script rewrites the Makefile.am, dropping the file from it as well.
> If a file is added to the repository the script also adds it to the
> appropriate Makefile.am's EXTRA_DIST variable. This isn't always the
> correct edit: Sometimes it should get added to a different primary or
> sometimes the file isn't to be distributed. The script takes a
> configurable list of files which aren't distributed. On one hand we now
> have another list of files to keep up-to-date, just shifting the
> problem, but we're more commonly adding/removing files that are
> distributed, so the list of files which aren't changes less frequently
> than the Makefile.am-s. Also the script hopefully gets the developer's
> attention whereupon she can intervene with a better edit, whereas
> without it, forgetting to distribute a new file can sometimes go
> unnoticed for a long time.
In most cases[1], a file that is outright missing from the distribution
can be immediately caught by running "make distcheck". Additional test
cases can be added using distcheck-hook. Make distcheck part of your
test plan.
That being said, if the script is helpful for you, by all means use it!
[1] Notable exception: files which need to be distributed but don't get
installed or used by the build process; files like READMEs, change
logs, etc. Distcheck will normally NOT notice if such files are
missing.
Cheers,
--
Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)
