On Sun, Sep 01, 2024 at 09:13:03PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > From: Gavin Smith <gavinsmith0...@gmail.com> > > Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2024 18:49:59 +0100 > > Cc: bug-texinfo@gnu.org > > > > On Sun, Sep 01, 2024 at 06:48:31PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > > > From: Gavin Smith <gavinsmith0...@gmail.com> > > > > Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2024 16:25:17 +0100 > > > > Cc: platform-test...@gnu.org > > > > > > > > . C source files that are generated from *.xs files are no no longer > > > > distributed, so xsubpp from Perl is needed to build XS modules. > > > > > > Why this change? That's not something I'd expect to see in a bugfix > > > release, since it potentially changes the build process. > > > > I think the fear was that since we distribute the *.xs files and > > the Makefile also has rules to generate the *.c files from the *.xs > > files, it is possible that the distributed *.c file is overwritten > > automatically. > > It can only be overwritten automatically if its XS source is newer, > i.e. if it was edited. In which case the overwrite is expected. > > This happens with any file in a tarball that is generated. For > example, if you modify configure.ac, the configure script will be > regenerated, overwriting the one that came with the tarball. > > This is completely normal and expected. > > > We felt it was wrong to overwrite a distributed file > > with no way of getting back the original version (other than extracting > > the distribution archive again.) > > This is not different from any other generated file in the tarball. > > > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2023-12/msg00011.html > > ""make distclean" does not bring back build tree to previous state" > > (Hilmar Preuße) > > > > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2021-02/msg00160.html > > "texinfo-6.7.90 tarball contains files that "make distclean" erases" > > (Bruno Haible) > > If the problem was with "make distclean", a better solution would be > to not delete these *.c files as part of "make distclean". According > to the GNU Coding Standards, the 'distclean' target removes only files > that were not in the tarball.
I've done some testing with texinfo-7.1 and I don't think there was actually a problem with the way it was done before. I think the reported problem (in December 2023) was due to the reporter doing something that changed the timestamps of TestXS.xs and/or TestXS.c causing TestXS.c to be rebuilt. In the original tarball TestXS.c is newer than TestXS.xs. I'm not going to change it back unless there are reports of missing xsubpp.
