Re: maint.mk syntax check problems

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Jim.

On Thursday 15 September 2011, Jim Meyering wrote:

> Martin von Gagern wrote:

> ...

> >> It might not be worth the effort/disruption.

> >> One advantage of using Makefile rules is that it's easy to override

> >> the defaults, as you see in the examples above.

> >

> > Not so hard with shell scripts either. Use "source cfg.sh" instead of

> > "-include ./cfg.mk" and everything should be about the same. As I don't

> > see cfg.mk containing many settings that apply to both syntax checks and

> > other aspects of maint.mk. Those few that might be present could be

> > explicitely passed to the shell script via environment or command line.

>

> Converting to a stand-alone script is a fine and seductive idea.

>

About an yaer ago I had proposed a similar move for automake's own

maintainer checks; see this RFC patch:

<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2010-07/msg00081.html>

The idea has been rejected though, as Ralf was afraid this move could be a

creeping NIH-ism and impose an extra maintainance burden; he hoped instead

to start using the gnulib infrastructure for maintainer-checks.

If there is interest, I can try to resurrect that patch, this time with

the aim of having it finally integrated into gnulib. Of course, some

preliminary discussions about design goals and usage requirements are in

order in this case.

> However, the details make the task look like it would be disruptive

> or counterproductive.

>

> Some of the tests may be easy to extract and convert, but many use

> things like _sc_search_regexp and VC_LIST_EXCEPT, which are also used in

> per-project tests (i.e., in cfg.mk), so even if we converted all of the

> tests in maint.mk, we'd have to leave those definitions in maint.mk

> and duplicate their functionality in this new script.

>

> Also, every project that currently records exemptions via

> .x-sc_* files or exclude_file_name_regexp--sc_* variables...

> continuing to support those mechanisms while also supporting

> "source some-new-file" configuration would be a challenge.

> And I do not relish the idea of being forced to convert

> every project to use the new framework.

>

> The same applies to all of our customizations in cfg.mk

> that change how particular tests work.

>

OK, so probably there isn't much interest ... oh well. I'm sending

the above pointer to my patch anyway, merely as an FYI; this shouldn't

hurt I guess.

Regards,

Stefano