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Re: removing the 'make install'-->'make all' dependency


From: Alexander Malmberg
Subject: Re: removing the 'make install'-->'make all' dependency
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 16:26:59 +0100

Nicola Pero wrote:
[snip]
> Even if ... even if I still think that technically this dependency is
> wrong.  'Compiling' (generating the files from the sources) and
> 'installing' (copying the files into the installation dirs) are separated
> tasks.  The system is much more flexible if you have the option of running
> only one of those two stages, or both of them, at your choice.  If instead
> 'installing' always implies 'compiling', this flexibility is lost as there
> is no way to perform the installation step without the compilation step.

Which makes perfect sense: the 'install' step depends on the 'compile'
step, and make is supposed to track these dependencies for us. You're
trading "flexibility" for correctness.

[snip]
> About this, the GNU coding standards say -
> 
> "If possible, write the install target rule so that it does not modify
> anything in the directory where the program was built, provided `make all'
> has just been done. This is convenient for building the program under one
> user name and installing it under another."
>
> This looks like a hack to me, to somewhat support a different usage
> pattern (building as one user, installing as another user, with the two
> operations separated) which can not really be supported if install depends
> on all.

It's hack because it isn't the primary goal. To me, the coding standards
read that 'install' should always depend on 'all', and _"if possible"_
(without breaking the dependency) 'make all; make all' shouldn't do
anything the second time.

[snip]
> Unfortunately, it won't help people who like to quickly add scripts or
> programs to GNUmakefile.postamble and don't have time to write proper make
> rules for them.

But that's their problem (or not; they might not care). We only need to
make sure that core GNUstep stuff conforms.

- Alexander Malmberg



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