gbranden pushed a commit to branch master
in repository groff.
commit 45c65367649b36072c3e6be8ef63ba87e167c543
Author: G. Branden Robinson <[email protected]>
AuthorDate: Sun Jan 18 19:12:10 2026 -0600
HACKING: Add guidance re: a failure scenario.
---
HACKING | 13 +++++++++++++
1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)
diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
index 68e57f399..b43d894d5 100644
--- a/HACKING
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -56,6 +56,19 @@ mailing list <[email protected]> or Savannah issue tracker.
If you find a defect in a test script, that can be reported via Savannah
like any other bug.
+When you run 'make distcheck', you may occasionally encounter a
+surprising problem where the build fails due to missing test scripts.
+This is more likely when using a modified (formerly: "dirty") checkout,
+because "git describe" appends "-modifier" to the git version
+information, and that in turn goes into the name of the distribution
+archive and the directory into which it unpacks. Long file names can
+then exceed the 99-character limit to which GNU tar still defaults for
+archive members (preserving compatibility with the tar format used by
+Seventh Edition Unix). Scroll back in your build to the "second build",
+where the distribution archive is unpacked in a squirreled-away
+directory selected by Automake. If this is the case, you will see error
+messages from "tar" (GNU tar, at any rate), warning of the problem.
+
Documenting changes
-------------------
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