Re: Ada build now requires gnatmake?

["Joseph S. Myers" <jsm28@cam.ac.uk>]

On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Zack Weinberg wrote:

> > Yes, you're right. I have checked in a patch to einfo.ads and forgot
> > to update the dependent sources, and sinced I have gnatmake on my
> > system this didn't show up during bootstrap. I'll fix this and think
> > about ways to ensure this doesn't happen again.
> 
> I thought the generated files had been taken out of CVS?

I thought that the generated files were now mentioned in
contrib/gcc_update, so if you update with that or use contrib/gcc_update
--touch after updating you shouldn't see the problem.

At some point after 3.1 we might then decide that gnatmake is a tool that
people building Ada from CVS (and people building release distributions)
need to have installed, remove the files from CVS and gcc_update, make
"make maintainer-clean" remove them, and arrange for the release script to
put them in the source directory if the build puts them in the build
directory.

It may not be documented, but I claim that the rules should be:

* Generated files are included in CVS iff they are not removed in
maintainer-clean.

* Any generated files needed to run configure and start building the
distribution are included in CVS (per the GNU Coding Standards on
maintainer-clean).  Other generated files are only included in CVS if they
are needed for build and we feel that the necessary tools to regenerate
them are sufficiently obscure or non-portable, or the requirements for a
specific version of them too restrictive, that people using CVS should not 
be expected to have them installed.

* The requirements for people building from snapshots are the same as
those for building from CVS.

* Where possible, architecture-independent generated files should be
included in release tarballs rather than requiring additional tools to be
installed by people building releases.  This includes Info files,
generated man pages, Bison-generated files and compiled message catalogs.
If the Makefiles put these files in the build directory, then the release
script must move them to the source directory, and the Makefiles must be
able to handle both cases (of the files in the source directory, and of
them in the build directory) when installing or using the generated files.
(The only example currently moved by the release script is that of
compiled message catalogs; the others mentioned get built in the source
directory.)

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28@cam.ac.uk