GNU logs - #33668, boring messages

Message sent to bug-automake@HIDDEN:

Subject: bug#33668: built-in YACC rule generates file in build dir, not source dir
Resent-From: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Resent-CC: bug-automake@HIDDEN
Resent-Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2018 22:40:01 +0000
Resent-Message-ID: <handler.33668.B.15442223957533 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@HIDDEN
To: 33668 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, akim@HIDDEN
From: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2018 23:39:25 +0100
Message-ID: <6961162.s5N1KWbIC1@omega>
User-Agent: KMail/5.1.3 (Linux/4.4.0-138-generic; KDE/5.18.0; x86_64; ; )
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="nextPart36772405.tVXmPM3kt1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
Precedence: list
Errors-To: debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Sender: "Debbugs-submit" <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--nextPart36772405.tVXmPM3kt1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Hi,

The Automake-generated Makefile rule for .y files, when run in a VPATH
build, produces the generated .c file in the build directory, not in the
source directory.

How to reproduce:
=2D Unpack the attached hello.tar.gz
$ cd hello
$ ./autogen.sh
$ mkdir vpath
$ cd vpath
$ ../configure
$ make
=2E..

$ ls -l ../rpcalc.c rpcalc.c
ls: cannot access '../rpcalc.c': No such file or directory
=2Drw-rw-r-- 1 bruno bruno 44704 Dec  7 22:54 rpcalc.c

$ make dist
$ tar tfz hello-0.tar.gz
hello-0/
hello-0/autoclean.sh
hello-0/autogen.sh
hello-0/rpcalc.y
hello-0/rpcalc.c
hello-0/INSTALL
hello-0/Makefile.in
hello-0/aclocal.m4
hello-0/configure.ac
hello-0/configure
hello-0/Makefile.am
hello-0/build-aux/
hello-0/build-aux/ylwrap
hello-0/build-aux/missing
hello-0/build-aux/install-sh
hello-0/build-aux/compile

So, you can see that

  * "make dist" produces a tarball which contains the rpcalc.c file.
    This is good, because yacc or bison is not one of the programs
    that all programmers have preinstalled.

Now, the GNU coding standards say that in this case the rpcalc.c file
should be generated in the source directory:
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Makefile-Basics.html

  "GNU distributions usually contain some files which are not source files=
=E2=80=94
   for example, Info files, and the output from Autoconf, Automake, Bison or
   Flex. Since these files normally appear in the source directory, they
   should always appear in the source directory, not in the build directory.
   So Makefile rules to update them should put the updated files in the sou=
rce
   directory."

Why is this important? Because without it, maintainers which ONLY use VPATH
builds on their development machine:
   $ mkdir build-42
   $ cd build-42
   $ ../configure CFLAGS=3D"-O0 -ggdb"
   ...
   $ cd ..
   $ rm -rf build-42
will see the file being regenerated over and over again, each time they
do a fresh build in a new subdirectory. That's not how a well-behaved
build system should behave.

As you can see from the 'ls' command above, Automake has generated
it in the build directory. It should generate it in the source directory
instead.

The way to implement this is that the generated Makefile.in should not
have a rule

=2Ey.c:
	$(AM_V_YACC)$(am__skipyacc) $(SHELL) $(YLWRAP) $< y.tab.c $@ y.tab.h `echo=
 $@ | $(am__yacc_c2h)` y.output $*.output -- $(YACCCOMPILE)

but instead have a rule

$(srcdir)/rpcalc.c: $(srcdir)/rpcalc.y
	$(AM_V_YACC)$(am__skipyacc) $(SHELL) $(YLWRAP) $(srcdir)/rpcalc.y y.tab.c =
rpcalc.c y.tab.h rpcalc.h y.output rpcalc.output -- $(YACCCOMPILE) && sed -=
e 's|".*/rpcalc.y"|"rpcalc.y"|' < rpcalc.c > rpcalc.c-tmp && rm -f rpcalc.c=
 && mv rpcalc.c-tmp $(srcdir)/rpcalc.c

The sed postprocessing is to fix the relative file names in #line statements
in the generated .c file.

Credits: The pattern of this rule comes from Daniel Richard G., Ralf Wilden=
hues,
and P=C3=A1draig Brady. See
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2010-04/msg00481.html
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=3Dgnulib.git;a=3Dhistory;f=3Dmodules=
/parse-datetime

Bruno



--nextPart36772405.tVXmPM3kt1
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="hello.tar.gz"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Type: application/x-compressed-tar; name="hello.tar.gz"
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--nextPart36772405.tVXmPM3kt1--

Message sent:

Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.505 (Entity 5.505)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
X-Loop: help-debbugs@HIDDEN
From: help-debbugs@HIDDEN (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: Bruno Haible <bruno@HIDDEN>
Subject: bug#33668: Acknowledgement (built-in YACC rule generates file in
 build dir, not source dir)
Message-ID: <handler.33668.B.15442223957533.ack <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
References: <6961162.s5N1KWbIC1@omega>
X-Gnu-PR-Message: ack 33668
X-Gnu-PR-Package: automake
Reply-To: 33668 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2018 22:40:02 +0000

Thank you for filing a new bug report with debbugs.gnu.org.

This is an automatically generated reply to let you know your message
has been received.

Your message is being forwarded to the package maintainers and other
interested parties for their attention; they will reply in due course.

Your message has been sent to the package maintainer(s):
 bug-automake@HIDDEN

If you wish to submit further information on this problem, please
send it to 33668 <at> debbugs.gnu.org.

Please do not send mail to help-debbugs@HIDDEN unless you wish
to report a problem with the Bug-tracking system.

--=20
33668: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=3D33668
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact help-debbugs@HIDDEN with problems

Message sent to bug-automake@HIDDEN:

Subject: bug#33668: built-in YACC rule generates file in build dir, not source dir
Resent-From: Hans-Bernhard =?UTF-8?Q?Br=C3=B6ker?= <HBBroeker@HIDDEN>
Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Resent-CC: bug-automake@HIDDEN
Resent-Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2018 14:43:01 +0000
Resent-Message-ID: <handler.33668.B33668.15442801506717 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@HIDDEN
To: 33668 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
References: <6961162.s5N1KWbIC1@omega>
From: Hans-Bernhard =?UTF-8?Q?Br=C3=B6ker?= <HBBroeker@HIDDEN>
Openpgp: preference=signencrypt
Autocrypt: addr=HBBroeker@HIDDEN; keydata=
 xsFNBFu0018BEAC34KXenx8N+WV5OOk0YGkpMbnplVar2DFCNTIDEYA6d8S84mD2IB6/R29G
 gmE0NNKwt5C0vFvETkF1K8iZlI6TxzmtmTMqQk5lGWnxbv02EsSJu4drIwQssCfYoZ0y3XhL
 gUlZa2PrLvrEDI4HHeYCd87xagdsDX2+fBjMMBqnvYgyAU5UOhhG+R6s/8UtHlzyeJTLYXQQ
 zYcOFpcX3Q7BsDQukVAhh8RW2ss44TrNmyxbd63dWlG7ZgW525PaA02PsHVSLQz7uIg38S/a
 /wtB6VqzudvYwcekMyM/XSn/bxaUCHcGGfW81Nd2YtxH5HuqGddHuuQF2vFuVrF+8dA/rPdS
 xUd8ENaP5bueFWg2hWJb7m/uTGHOPNUeITDNLXpIElGZmqchb3j2kkzsebVlsa2BoYWdK4Aa
 16gS0TzcgbAaPE5QRyKQlG/KEgUn6NzI2MSMJBilExtqJtw0fdXZzbOE/73XzfGNVCUk+M9l
 cXi5QLbYz0jSR2vvR/LXMYrnnl5jZ1Kc3ZNQU/8qaIMVreMybnDWaFYkFDscLPva51w04l6g
 VXDAxnV90YKJVzXJeTZhzNfa8MkNwKOmCTGew3ICP9sxIiodB/Qvgb9IkuYSqE+fGvl+IQzU
 W5/XhNH3VSyez4gJyluyE3U46CavSBUMAWp18Uy2M3KnlhC5zwARAQABzS1IYW5zLUJlcm5o
 YXJkIEJyw7ZrZXIgPEhCQnJvZWtlckB0LW9ubGluZS5kZT7CwZQEEwEIAD4WIQTc/lme+ZOt
 c9WJ61ZACUc41oYFXQUCW7TTXwIbIwUJCWYBgAULCQgHAgYVCgkICwIEFgIDAQIeAQIXgAAK
 CRBACUc41oYFXQxAEACL7KkFgLMUrRDh4AjVVvlXUPaqxrhBN1uMunYHBGT3WeRmHfG6NirG
 rCvk8PwMjZ4GRdQ2kDIi5QjDDtJXwYYjvjyZdqGxgq+tC3u5RdwkTyDxV4UpAJ2yZu/CVkQW
 7I1Ea9Uld988Wq7uxwWtgs1gYCkT5sSwcZDDE2NQZivAXAjCWR5WAJiPJr4h6oyDAM2pfwI/
 W7j00xIu5xuGc0WKdxT2PdkIK/tkCGMguEA8AKFyvJOwoKG0IIhsLxtuVHNfnK6uG/GOKInU
 0ewdL7b7HWI69Bn/pDdueN0C6WGcbpE0iEJdzV23iMkA3I7W6JQit9nUJgf5kTax/dureQRa
 VV6wS9q0hZuhhxYJ7Fg6NZ4t2g93SdW86lXUHqfuoYN+5pb5zGOq3+kfp30fF/rHlcBlIw/z
 Vh44k6ndK+P5LBrM4kzHWwTW3dccmF450sfC3ub9Pyo+1R3ibbYSaE6jDYsj/TDZiFugSdWr
 C6tM1xeeMV2JgCrj/BLpVzY0XW6t21PCAFxzCGlsBgBdOjNKLDK4nqXP2cSFFE4ia2XXmymL
 cD9DoxUM46aVwnsuobMvmDwRpZaQeaKlViS/r+lrkleEF/RZBvMaN4FCrYVTS+gmRiXdDlHV
 SjvULNiFvoSQ1oM2b/H69+ZZQGH2srTEzN9nHm62OdUw4p/wtBXm687BTQRbtNNfARAAuVOL
 fTVdSjX87X+ANDq28HdFrOOn13eRHMkCZekteaPTcVtM7cr48CEINACvTo40k1lONuuvnQ53
 yKDP7D9SP+RtyjbRPddU6eMxtNth4cc5wHul7DWjctzMSTrwOydH2hch3z9z6ssOr+H/CJy8
 3yYnhsCU3O5II/eif7sGMC0TbCg4hkfjbLAc2r9dxoWbmeef6JccEXWotwJBKRNbalHpeWeL
 NOf6CDfozOVo1cn6iYDjjHOyua105hZv5oXjU+NIP6fp/1Ojl+TxG1R9u84+MrbA0UOQk3+I
 XuMzvr1Xk3ltWfd+12Q6pA8TZhcFgjCGMDwi2ZKHTJoLDpV/iTM426xyAAHa3lBQcFPEcVd/
 vsu0K1mn9HSZrelV0hafCs8C97zhQ3QMJDgsNjcYOnvSJ87QEZHnLhG5qLlSKzWfgzsMMdX+
 aqZM2qALKPH8suZvpVQEgBMMIPA3Wg6aCm6PenvxwJlNbjQ9TdxdW5/IdIr25FeiTJSVagAZ
 ep6LGVbjVu5PFN1zMckIVzc6wmkAhFN8v9LEpfKznZYEDp7PlWAyJ27959LdFLTHTRxUj0Ko
 vlOI1My6P2+tnXNy6zGwPhgWhPWtpQ4yd6NcdD94vKA9wIO8lg697g1g6n/WCC040uPxsw7g
 JOeq0FXOEFrZlI0VkIY/FyQq1rUJFxsAEQEAAcLBfAQYAQgAJhYhBNz+WZ75k61z1YnrVkAJ
 RzjWhgVdBQJbtNNfAhsMBQkJZgGAAAoJEEAJRzjWhgVdfLIQAKPupVQCZDfKHt61DC8dLqkL
 anbJHEMN7NiPc/c7CUL9uGzM07+y2D3CWqbviZHQFVHtQnkKDUGnn/HnPQdei4nabd/eS1ih
 EqDGrMUj/9wyCNbrqMqOsKLsCFtT7GwVlf+K3Qow3Y6iRaP4k7Pjyo2Z6xpn8JzoK9Tpm28H
 wozW4LR5xEOVJkifAdy62Ofjsmr9MF2+I0pbBBs3zw8JHLuKOZQQNA1ARmYK49Ri6cW6kSLy
 1pfDGzlgbpFhaV8bPiZotoWcQQUh3PbuMwVV3/mFHo2PfwxrMd/DD9TuxSF+XRq2Map0CI7B
 rag74AUOXLTrn7FOFVPuEsNSUJhNNv+MWtNpH6JA85TRdePFgsoOZPtKxPl5ABW1Y8uE1h0t
 iGGvWoEkJ1nPBl1eI4wwnkTMGSjiatAbsRMZVDxpr4gCzKLx5xNFeEYYXkz22iCK7xKy9LzW
 fwuRH+vXIsv9PYpcooGL+Sn/T+fU+7L9xDvycflVrNmR05iDiOUYIE2X4dY6ox1X/wwxnMAy
 1hcBLXn4PIzvApxfyt1xlXY0WATpyi+GqLagzDya0eXdCSoM8awgpKe+n8/aWQetF4WWhDPI
 mZFJJ7pa0jlUvkUH2raS7XOiOJWn9/ZjYoCQMfdY76Wk8L1TBmSHAN0vu9dC5jZfl/pVsspo
 fbK0pZZq45gj
Message-ID: <a3b7d6ac-6598-7e95-f37b-3402cc1622e9@HIDDEN>
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2018 15:42:16 +0100
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/60.3.3
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <6961162.s5N1KWbIC1@omega>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Precedence: list
Errors-To: debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Sender: "Debbugs-submit" <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>

[Accidentally sent this to Bruno only, before...]

Am 07.12.2018 um 23:39 schrieb Bruno Haible:

> Why is this important? Because without it, maintainers which ONLY use VPATH
> builds on their development machine:
>    $ mkdir build-42
>    $ cd build-42
>    $ ../configure CFLAGS="-O0 -ggdb"
>    ...
>    $ cd ..
>    $ rm -rf build-42
> will see the file being regenerated over and over again, each time they
> do a fresh build in a new subdirectory. That's not how a well-behaved
> build system should behave.
> 

I beg to disagree here.  Just because builds are done via VPATH, that
doesn't mean they will invariably be nixed after every build --- and
those who do that already rebuild just about everything every time
round, so a couple YACC runs won't make any noticeable difference.
Actually, by the usual arguments for doing it this way, they would
_have_ to be rebuilt every time, just like everything else.

OTOH, VPATH builds can remain standing and be delta-compiled just like
in-tree ones, and one of the reasons that cause maintainers to use VPATH
builds involve keeping around different builds, with different tools
used, without having to nix everything every time around.  That means all
output of such tools has to be build-specific, and thus needs to be in
the build tree.

In the case at hand it can be quite important to check that the project
works well with both yacc and bison.  That would be impossible with
parser.c in the source tree.  The same argument holds for checking
buildability with both lex and flex, gcc and clang, etc.

Texi output is different because there is, for all intents and purposes,
only one toolchain in existence to create it, thus no difference to test
for/against.

Last modified: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 12:00:02 UTC

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.