Re: 03texi2txt.diff

[Derek Robert Price]

Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:

> > > > "Derek" == Derek Robert Price <address@hidden> writes:
> > > >        
>
> Derek> CVS has had rules in its doc/Makefile.am for awhile to generate .txt 
> files from
> Derek> texinfos.  Basically it just requires the passage of --no-headers to 
> makeinfo.
>
> Derek> I've included a patch that uses the dvi, info, pdf, and
> Derek> ps targets as a model to define txt targets that build
> Derek> .txt files from all texinfos.
>
> Thanks, but new features should also come with documentation,
> tests, and NEWS entry, otherwise we will forget about them and
> they are guaranteed to break in the future.  I guess this is
> just a matter of adding "make txt" near any mention of "make
> html" (even in test cases).  html will be a new target in 1.8
> too.

I'm all for documentations & tests and I'll be happy to write all of 
that.  I wanted to make sure this was a desirable feature before I did 
the documentation work.

> But see the heavy note in NEWS about the various ways the new
> "html" target can break existing packages.  This would apply to
> "txt" too.  Each time a new recursive target is added, it's a
> problem with embedded third party packages that are not aware of
> this new target.  For instance gettext's intl/Makefile.in
> contains
>
>  info dvi ps pdf html:
>
> because Bruno was aware of the upcoming html target; but this
> Makefile would fail `make txt'.

This is true, and similar notes can be added to NEWS, I suppose.  I do 
have enough experience with this sort of problem (CVS uses several 
homegrown Makefile.ins in addition to its automake generated makefiles 
and I've run into this several times with various recursive targets 
since converting CVS to use Automake) that the problem is easy to spot 
and the fix easy to make.  The recursive target breaks and the local one 
does not (i.e. cd'ing to the doc directory and running `make txt' will 
likely still work).  Also, simply adding the phony `txt' target to the 
homegrown Makefile.ins quickly fixes the problem after the first bug report.

> I'm curious to know when is `make txt' used.  Is it
> important/useful enough to excuse such hassle?
>  

I'm not actually sure.  I'm simply supporting a target that's been 
around since March of 96.  I didn't join CVS until sometime in 98.   I 
generally figure that txt might be useful for novice users (especially 
those novice with UNIX or GNU), perhaps for users on systems without 
much other GNU software installed (I remember having a hard time with 
info when I first started with CVS on Solaris), they might be good for 
sending through email, and supporting it isn't much effort, so I do it.

Derek

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