Re: Texinfo 7.1.0.91 pretest available

[Gavin Smith]

On Sun, Sep 01, 2024 at 09:13:03PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Gavin Smith <gavinsmith0123@gmail.com>
> > Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2024 18:49:59 +0100
> > Cc: bug-texinfo@gnu.org
> > 
> > On Sun, Sep 01, 2024 at 06:48:31PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > > From: Gavin Smith <gavinsmith0123@gmail.com>
> > > > Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2024 16:25:17 +0100
> > > > Cc: platform-testers@gnu.org
> > > > 
> > > >   . C source files that are generated from *.xs files are no no longer
> > > >     distributed, so xsubpp from Perl is needed to build XS modules.
> > > 
> > > Why this change?  That's not something I'd expect to see in a bugfix
> > > release, since it potentially changes the build process.
> > 
> > I think the fear was that since we distribute the *.xs files and
> > the Makefile also has rules to generate the *.c files from the *.xs
> > files, it is possible that the distributed *.c file is overwritten
> > automatically.
> 
> It can only be overwritten automatically if its XS source is newer,
> i.e. if it was edited.  In which case the overwrite is expected.
> 
> This happens with any file in a tarball that is generated.  For
> example, if you modify configure.ac, the configure script will be
> regenerated, overwriting the one that came with the tarball.
> 
> This is completely normal and expected.
> 
> > We felt it was wrong to overwrite a distributed file
> > with no way of getting back the original version (other than extracting
> > the distribution archive again.)
> 
> This is not different from any other generated file in the tarball.
> 
> > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2023-12/msg00011.html
> > ""make distclean" does not bring back build tree to previous state"
> > (Hilmar Preuße)
> > 
> > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2021-02/msg00160.html
> > "texinfo-6.7.90 tarball contains files that "make distclean" erases"
> > (Bruno Haible)
> 
> If the problem was with "make distclean", a better solution would be
> to not delete these *.c files as part of "make distclean".  According
> to the GNU Coding Standards, the 'distclean' target removes only files
> that were not in the tarball.

I've done some testing with texinfo-7.1 and I don't think there was
actually a problem with the way it was done before.  I think the
reported problem (in December 2023) was due to the reporter doing
something that changed the timestamps of TestXS.xs and/or TestXS.c
causing TestXS.c to be rebuilt.  In the original tarball TestXS.c
is newer than TestXS.xs.

I'm not going to change it back unless there are reports of missing
xsubpp.