bug#9106: 24.0.50; ./configure causes massive recompilation

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 02:29:38 -0400
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: 9106@debbugs.gnu.org, bug-gnulib@gnu.org
> 
> > The unnecessary "make" actions would fill up people's screens,
> > and would be confusing.
> 
> They fill up my screen already, as things are now.
> 
> > I'm afraid this cure would be worse than the disease.
> 
> I feel there's some kind of misunderstanding here, because with my
> proposal, nothing will happen that doesn't already happen.  Perhaps
> you could show in more detail which Make actions would happen that
> doesn't happen now.

Perhaps you thought that a mere "make", even without re-running
`configure', will trigger these rules.  But that is not the case: as
long as config.status is not updated, these rules will not be
triggered, since unistd.h etc. will always be newer than the
corresponding *.in.h templates, due to the fact that move-if-change
_will_ overwrite them with newer versions whenever there's a real
change in the *.in.h templates.

Am I missing something?