Re: GNUmakefile and maintainer-distcheck

[Eric Blake]

Eric Blake <ebb9 <at> byu.net> writes:

> Another GNUmakefile tweak.

And another.  I noticed that once .version was created, nothing kept it up-to-
date.  For instance, with the latest coreutils-ss.tar.lzma, .version is 
6.10.165-157ff, even though the tarball is 6.10.169-a1a0b.  This patch removes 
a stale .version any time that the maintainer needs it to be up-to-date, just 
prior to a release.

So in the process of fixing it, I followed the advice of this mail:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2008-03/msg00025.html
and documented how .version and .tarball-version should both be used when doing 
intra-version release numbering.

I've tested this on autoconf, with both in-place and out-of-tree VPATH builds, 
to make sure there is no infinite 'make dist' loop.  I believe I finally 
understand how the pieces fit together, so hopefully my documentation is 
correct.


>From 1a98f86fef7e1a212f453cfb09439f95f7606099 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Eric Blake <address@hidden>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 16:31:30 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] Ensure sane .version contents.

* top/GNUmakefile (_dummy): Also delete .version when rebuilding
version string.
* build-aux/git-version-gen: Improve documentation.

Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <address@hidden>
---
 ChangeLog                 |    5 ++++
 build-aux/git-version-gen |   46 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 top/GNUmakefile           |    3 +-
 3 files changed, 51 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 9f68c74..1e5954a 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 2008-04-03  Eric Blake  <address@hidden>
 
+       Ensure sane .version contents.
+       * top/GNUmakefile (_dummy): Also delete .version when rebuilding
+       version string.
+       * build-aux/git-version-gen: Improve documentation.
+
        Make GNU make output nicer.
        * top/GNUmakefile [!_have-Makefile]: Add dependency on
        MAKECMDGOALS to enforce message for all command line targets.  Set
diff --git a/build-aux/git-version-gen b/build-aux/git-version-gen
index 5f819ba..7aa0253 100755
--- a/build-aux/git-version-gen
+++ b/build-aux/git-version-gen
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 # Print a version string.
-scriptversion=2008-03-02.16
+scriptversion=2008-04-03.22
 
-# Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation
+# Copyright (C) 2007-2008 Free Software Foundation
 #
 # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
@@ -26,6 +26,48 @@ scriptversion=2008-03-02.16
 # - from a non-git-repo directory containing a .tarball-version file, which
 #   presumes this script is invoked like "./git-version-gen .tarball-version".
 
+# In order to use intra-version strings in your project, you will need two
+# separate generated version string files:
+#
+# .tarball-version - present only in a distribution tarball, and not in
+#   a checked-out repository.  Created with contents that were learned at
+#   the last time autoconf was run, and used by git-version-gen.  Must not
+#   be present in either $(srcdir) or $(builddir) for git-version-gen to
+#   give accurate answers during normal development with a checked out tree,
+#   but must be present in a tarball when there is no version control system.
+#   Therefore, it cannot be used in any dependencies.  GNUmakefile has
+#   hooks to force a reconfigure at distribution time to get the value
+#   correct, without penalizing normal development with extra reconfigures.
+#
+# .version - present in a checked-out repository and in a distribution
+#   tarball.  Usable in dependencies, particularly for files that don't
+#   want to depend on config.h but do want to track version changes.
+#   Delete this file prior to any autoconf run where you want to rebuild
+#   files to pick up a version string change; and leave it stale to
+#   minimize rebuild time after unrelated changes to configure sources.
+#
+# It is probably wise to add these two files to .gitignore, so that you
+# don't accidentally commit either generated file.
+#
+# Use the following line in your configure.ac, so that $(VERSION) will
+# automatically be up-to-date each time configure is run (and note that
+# since configure.ac no longer includes a version string, Makefile rules
+# should not depend on configure.ac for version updates).
+#
+# AC_INIT([GNU project],
+#         m4_esyscmd([build-aux/git-version-gen .tarball-version]),
+#         address@hidden)
+#
+# Then use the following lines in your Makefile.am, so that .version
+# will be present for dependencies, and so that .tarball-version will
+# exist in distribution tarballs.
+#
+# BUILT_SOURCES = $(top_srcdir)/.version
+# $(top_srcdir)/.version:
+#      echo $(VERSION) > address@hidden && mv address@hidden $@
+# dist-hook:
+#      echo $(VERSION) > $(distdir)/.tarball-version
+
 case $# in
     1) ;;
     *) echo 1>&2 "Usage: $0 \$srcdir/.tarball-version"; exit 1;;
diff --git a/top/GNUmakefile b/top/GNUmakefile
index bba6243..0c1bc38 100644
--- a/top/GNUmakefile
+++ b/top/GNUmakefile
@@ -60,7 +60,8 @@ ifeq ($(_have-git-version-gen)0,yes$(MAKELEVEL))
                    $(srcdir)/.tarball-version)
     ifneq ($(_curr-ver),$(VERSION))
       $(info INFO: running autoreconf for new version string: $(_curr-ver))
-      _dummy := $(shell cd $(srcdir) && rm -rf autom4te.cache && 
$(_autoreconf)))
+      _dummy := $(shell cd $(srcdir) && rm -rf autom4te.cache .version \
+        && $(_autoreconf))
     endif
   endif
 endif
-- 
1.5.4