Re: GNUmakefile and 'make install'

[Jim Meyering]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
> Eric Blake <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Avoiding recompilation during 'make all' due to a version change was the very
>> reason that git-version-gen was invented.  Recompiling the version string is
>> EXPENSIVE - it costs a LOT of time to recompile the world because config.h 
>> was
>> touched because autoconf reran to pick up a new version string.
>
> Stepping back for a minute: a minor change like a version-number bump
> should not force the system to recompile everything in sight.  In the
> long run, we should look into fixing the normal build process to put
> the version string somewhere else than config.h.

I too would like this.
If you use ccache (and you should!),
you'll notice a bigger performance gain if it can
reuse more .o files.  Then, simply linking in a
symbol for the version string would be better.