Your message dated Fri, 29 Aug 2014 16:53:54 -0700 with message-id <[email protected]> and subject line Re: Bug#325372: lintian: please add check for careless usage of "make clean" and the like has caused the Debian Bug report #325453, regarding developers-reference: Discourage use of -make clean in debian/rules to be marked as done.
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--- Begin Message ---Package: lintian Version: 1.23.10 Severity: wishlist A lot of packages, particularly those with upstreams that use the GNU autotools, have a very nasty habit of running the upstream clean rule while utterly ignoring any errors from it. This is very, very bad. Please add a check for it. An egrep regex to catch this is probably about as simple as: '\t[[:space:]]*-(\$[({]MAKE[)}]|make)[[:space:]].*(dist)?clean' See transcript of IRC discussion below for further elaboration of rationale. 00:35 < Overfiend> joshk: What didn't you like about my changes to debian/rules? 00:36 < Overfiend> a configure target for autofoo-using packages is common practice AFAICT 00:36 < Overfiend> because of the problem of getting a properly cleaned tree 00:36 < Overfiend> if you were to assert that configure getting run *twice* for every package build from a freshly-unpacked source were a bit stupid, I'd agree. 00:36 < Overfiend> But that stupidity appears to be forced on us by GNU autofoo. 00:37 < joshk> yes - my scripts run a clean and then a build.. 00:37 < Overfiend> your scripts? debuild does that too. dpkg-buildpackage might as well, I don't remember. 00:37 < Overfiend> it's the Right Thing to do. 00:37 < vorlon> Overfiend: meh? Why would it be run twice? 00:37 < Overfiend> Builds should always start from a known state. 00:37 < Overfiend> vorlon: because debuild invokes debian/rules clean before debian/rules binary 00:38 < Overfiend> or dpkg-buildpackage does 00:38 < Overfiend> as I said, I don't remember 00:38 < doogie> why does clean depend on configure? 00:38 < vorlon> Overfiend: there's no reason clean should need to depend on configure 00:38 < Overfiend> can't "make clean" if there's no Makefile... 00:38 < vorlon> not with sane autotoolery 00:38 < doogie> then don't 00:38 < vorlon> yes, so you type "-make clean" instead 00:38 < Overfiend> UGH! 00:38 < doogie> what he said 00:38 < joshk> -$(MAKE) distclean, here 00:38 * Overfiend vomits across the room 00:38 < Overfiend> that's fucking moronic 00:38 < doogie> no, this is how it's done 00:38 < joshk> Overfiend: wow. have you considered entering a contest? 00:38 < Overfiend> "I don't care why make clean failed. Ignore it." 00:39 < vorlon> fine. [ ! -f Makefile ] || make clean 00:39 < vorlon> :P 00:39 < Overfiend> That's like swatting a fly with a neutron star. 00:39 < doogie> however, this is why I hate build systems that don't support a build dir. 00:39 < joshk> build system? what build system? :| 00:39 < Overfiend> vorlon: that's a bit more reasonable. 00:39 < joshk> vorlon: hmm, good idea 00:39 < doogie> ifeq (Makefile,$(wildcard Makefile)) 00:40 < doogie> make clean 00:40 < doogie> endif 00:40 < Overfiend> "Ignore all errors from make on the assumption that the only reason it would fail is because there's no Makefile" is mondo stupid. 00:40 < joshk> well, the reason i chose to do it my way is because it's that way in every single one of my autofoo using packages currently 00:40 < doogie> my way is more efficient. less forking. 00:40 < joshk> so even if you were right, i'd end up having to orchestrate that change over all my packages anyway.. 00:40 < joshk> IOW: someday. 00:41 < Overfiend> I don't care which approach, vorlon's or doogie's, people use. but -$(MAKE) {dist,}clean is just unholy bad. 00:41 < vorlon> doogie: doesn't every line get passed to sh for execution? If [ is a builtin, there's no difference in fork count (Connection timed out)] 00:42 < Overfiend> Recall that people mindlessly ignoring error conditions is why we see most security advisories. 00:42 < doogie> vorlon: try again. if the Makefile doesn't exist, $(wildcard) expands to nothing, so the line isn't sent to the shell 00:42 < vorlon> ah. 00:42 < vorlon> right. 00:42 < joshk> Overfiend: a ton of people, not just myself, use a variation of -make clean - you may want to submit a lintian check for it... 00:42 < doogie> and you have to test for the file's existance anyways. 00:42 < joshk> sounds like something that would get in. and it would compel me to do it more quickly :) 00:42 < doogie> altho, it does make the file harder to read 00:43 < Overfiend> joshk, doogie, vorlon: permission to quote you guys in my bug report. 00:43 < joshk> Overfiend: granted 00:43 < Overfiend> I'd rather paste this discussion than rewrite it. 00:43 < vorlon> Overfiend: as long as you leave out the fart noises [Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer)] 00:43 < Overfiend> vorlon: oh, very well 00:43 < doogie> you can always quote my makefile foo, if it is meant to scare and intimidate 00:43 < Overfiend> doogie: :) -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: powerpc (ppc) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.9-powerpc-smp Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Versions of packages lintian depends on: ii binutils 2.16.1-2 The GNU assembler, linker and bina ii diffstat 1.41-1 produces graph of changes introduc ii file 4.12-1 Determines file type using "magic" ii gettext 0.14.5-2 GNU Internationalization utilities ii intltool-debian 0.30+20040213 Help i18n of RFC822 compliant conf ii man-db 2.4.3-1 The on-line manual pager ii perl [libdigest-md5-perl] 5.8.7-4 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction lintian recommends no packages. -- no debconf information
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--- Begin Message ---Hi, Using '-make clean' is now tested by lintian, and raises a warning: W: viva source: debian-rules-ignores-make-clean-error line 32 N: N: A rule in the debian/rules file for this package calls the package's N: clean or distclean target with a line like: N: N: -$(MAKE) distclean N: or N: $(MAKE) -i distclean N: N: The leading "-" or the option -i tells make to ignore all errors. N: Normally this is done for packages using Autoconf since Makefile may not N: exist. However, this line ignores all other error messages, not just the N: missing Makefile error. It's better to use: N: N: [ ! -f Makefile ] || $(MAKE) distclean N: N: so that other error messages from the clean or distclean rule will still N: be caught (or just remove the "-" if the package uses a static N: makefile). N: N: Severity: normal, Certainty: certain N: N: Check: rules, Type: source So I don't think that there's a need to mention this in dev-ref anymore, given the widespread usage of lintian nowadays. Thus closing this bug. Lucas
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