At 9:18 AM +0100 4/8/02, Ged Haywood wrote: >Then print only the messages you want people to see. In my view there >is far too much output from a typical build and install (of anything:).
I have to agree with this. Installers are notorious for this, with compilers following close behind. I remember once (a long long time ago) when I was working in the computer center in college and someone couldn't figure out why their program wouldn't run. They'd been compiling, editing, and running it for an hour, but it just wouldn't run. The compiler put out about five lines of copyright and random info everytime it ran. They didn't notice the one line of error message that followed that. All that diagnostic stuff is useful if something goes wrong, but not otherwise. I like some of the newer installers now that at the end of the run tell you exactly what directories things were installed with, instead of asking you to peruse several pages of output. I'd say do this: Dump all your informative info to a variable or tmp file. If there's an error--print the informative stuff *then*, along with the error (or an error message and pointer to the tmp file). If there isn't--print a nice summary and toss the variable out. If you've got sub-builds and the like, then print a message when they start, and print a "." for every compile as you (invisibly) see the output go by. And of course you can erase the line and show the next build in the same place. -- Kee Hinckley - Somewhere.Com, LLC http://consulting.somewhere.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
