Re: GNUMakefile: don't fail if there is no .tarball-version

[Jim Meyering]

Eric Blake <address@hidden> wrote:
...
> Actually, that isn't right either.  Rather, git-version-gen has the 
> requirement
> that _IF_ the first argument does not exist as a file, or exists but does not
> have a valid version string, _THEN_ it must be invoked from within a VCS
> checkout in order to generate a valid string (in fact, the only advantage of
> requiring a first argument when run from a VCS tree is that you can get a 
> usage
> message; we could make the first argument optional, in which case git-version-
> gen then requires being run within a VCS tree to generate a valid string).
> gnulib-tool could pass something other than /dev/null as the first argument,
> even something that does not exist, and it would still work, because it always
> invokes git-version-gen from within a VCS checkout.
>
>>
>> GNUmakefile passes the argument $(srcdir)/.tarball-version to git-version-gen
>> without testing whether this file exists or not. This is the bug IMO.
>
> What about this patch, then?  It makes GNUmakefile avoid triggering an
> autoreconf if git-version-gen returns a version of UNKNOWN, which is the case
> in gnulib's testdir (you are not in a VCS tree, and you did not create 
> .tarball-
> version).  It is not the existence of '.tarball-version' that matters, so much
> as the response to git-version-gen's behavior when both its first argument and
> git-describe fail to come up with a version string.

Nice explanation.

> OK to apply?  Also, should this be modified to print an INFO message warning
> the user if git-version-gen returned UNKNOWN (normally an important warning,
> but one which can be safely ignored in a gnulib-tool testdir)?

Yes, please.  Adding a warning does sound like a good idea.
Thank you!

>>From eae87f2093161a83b3296520b02caad7ad5db642 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Eric Blake <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 16:03:13 -0600
> Subject: [PATCH] Be tolerant of missing .tarball-version in gnulib-tool test
> dir.
>
> * top/GNUmakefile (_dummy): Don't reconfigure if git-version-gen
> reported UNKNOWN.
> Reported by Simon Josefsson.