Re: Proposed gnulib renames

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> There's no need to keep gnulib-cache.m4, since gnulib-tool is invoked only
> from Makefile.in.

I disagree. The gnulib documentation ([1], paragraph 1) recommends to put also
gnulib-cache.m4 into the repository.

The reason is that when a file is renamed in gnulib or some module dependency
is removed in gnulib, what happens at the next invocation of sync-from-gnulib?
  - When gnulib-cache.m4 is present, gnulib-tool will add a file under the
    new name and remove the old file. Because it knows that the file came from
    gnulib.
  - When gnulib-cache.m4 is missing, gnulib-tool will just add a file under
    the new name, but leave the old file around, because it looks like that
    file was genuine Emacs source.

So, if you routinely remove gnulib-cache.m4, over time the repository will
accumulate garbage files. Sometimes they don't hurt (if it's just a .c file),
but it can really get in the way and cause trouble (if it's a .h file).

Bruno

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/VCS-Issues.html