Creating build version numbers (was RE: How to always build a tar get?)

[Eric Brown]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Knight [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 12:05 PM
> To: Eric Brown
> Cc: 'address@hidden'
> Subject: Re: How to always build a target?
> I don't know of any way to do this right now, short of making the target
> dependent on some other file that changes every time.
> 
> Invoking something every time and letting the underlying tool handle part
> of the dependency analysis runs counter to Cons' design.  Cons would
> have no way of knowing that your smart tool figured out that it didn't
> need to update the header file.  Hence, Cons would still think the header
> file had been rebuilt every time, and it would then try to rebuild every
> target that depends on that header file every time, which is probably not
> what you want.  You could get around this by Ignore()ing the dependency
> on the header file, but then the dependent targets wouldn't get rebuilt
> when you actually wanted them to...

OK.  What I really want is the header in question (which contains a build
version number) to get rebuilt on the first build of the day (and not
thereafter).  Is there a good (or even feasible) way to do this?

Eric