Re: how to extend the Makefile templates?
Hi Ralf, Ralf Wildenhues wrote: Hi Harald, * Harald Dunkel wrote on Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 12:39:46PM CEST: I would need some way to add recursive targets to all generated Makefiles, without asking every owner of every Makefile.am to append some include statement or some keyword to be replaced by AC_SUBST_FILE. Hmm. I remember you asking a similar question before. Kevin Teich started a thread about this in April. But the issue wasn't resolve, AFAIR. What would be your suggestion to solve this? I don't have a good answer to your specific question at the moment (short of extending Automake). But I have a suggestion for questions such as yours: For other people (e.g. me), requirements such as above would be much easier to understand if a good reason for it was given as well. I mean, what is it that prevents you from doing something like this find $top_srcdir -name Makefile.am | while read file do echo 'include $top_srcdir/some_snippet.am' $file done This would assume that I am allowed to change the foreign Makefile.am files, it assumes that this command wasn't run before, and it assumes that there is no AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS. If something like this is supposed to be run, then it should work on the generated Makefile.in files. (That would be the job of automake, anyway.) The some_snippet.am would have to be converted into some_snippet.in in $(top_srcdir), and this would break the $(top_srcdir) variable for all Makefiles in subdirectories. I would like to add recursive targets to extend the test framework (e.g. to not stop testing completely if a single unittest fails in a subdirectory deep inside), or to recursively create a coverage report, to add common build targets for the documentation, and so on. My suggestion would be something like this: Some macro in configure.ac AM_ADD_TARGET([mytarget],[dependencies], some program lines could go here ) It could be used to create targets mytarget and mytarget-am as for the existing recursive targets, to add mytarget-recursive to $(RECURSIVE_TARGETS), to add it to .PHONY, and so on. Of course this might introduce problems, too (e.g. when using recursive targets in the dependencies). It would be necessary to document the difference between install and install-am, for example. Regards Harri
Re: how to extend the Makefile templates?
Hi Harald, * Harald Dunkel wrote on Wed, Aug 17, 2005 at 10:15:57AM CEST: Ralf Wildenhues wrote: * Harald Dunkel wrote on Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 12:39:46PM CEST: I would need some way to add recursive targets to all generated Makefiles, without asking every owner of every Makefile.am to append some include statement or some keyword to be replaced by AC_SUBST_FILE. *snip* For other people (e.g. me), requirements such as above would be much easier to understand if a good reason for it was given as well. I mean, what is it that prevents you from doing something like this find $top_srcdir -name Makefile.am | while read file do echo 'include $top_srcdir/some_snippet.am' $file done This would assume that I am allowed to change the foreign Makefile.am files, Yes. What prevents this? it assumes that this command wasn't run before, This can easily be checked. You also need to do this only _once_. And never again. and it assumes that there is no AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS. Why? This is trivial to check, too. Oh, you mean you would need several copies of some_snippet.am? Well, you can adjust the path for subpackages. A bit more work, but still not much. If something like this is supposed to be run, then it should work on the generated Makefile.in files. (That would be the job of automake, anyway.) The some_snippet.am would have to be converted into some_snippet.in in $(top_srcdir), and this would break the $(top_srcdir) variable for all Makefiles in subdirectories. I don't understand this. Why can't you change Makefile.am before running automake? Is it because you are neither the packages' author nor do you have the tools to modify the package? Please clarify the reason for your seemingly unreasonable constraints. To me, they make no sense, because here: I would like to add recursive targets to extend the test framework (e.g. to not stop testing completely if a single unittest fails in a subdirectory deep inside), or to recursively create a coverage report, to add common build targets for the documentation, and so on. What is the test framework composed of? Simple Automake TESTS/ check_* stuff, or Autotest, or DejaGNU, or something else? My suggestion would be something like this: Some macro in configure.ac You suggest adding stuff to configure.ac. Why is it that you may adjust configure.ac (and possibly subpackages' configure.ac files?) but not Makefile.am files? AM_ADD_TARGET([mytarget],[dependencies], some program lines could go here ) It could be used to create targets mytarget and mytarget-am as for the existing recursive targets, to add mytarget-recursive to $(RECURSIVE_TARGETS), to add it to .PHONY, and so on. I can see the usefulness of something vaguely similar to this, but I don't see why you need it in the issue you describe. Of course this might introduce problems, too (e.g. when using recursive targets in the dependencies). It would be necessary to document the difference between install and install-am, for example. To summarize: you still have not convinced me, that the problem you really want to solve is best solved the way you describe. If you can make the problem space clear, there may be a chance that someone can suggest a better way to solve it. Cheers, Ralf
Re: how to extend the Makefile templates?
Ralf Wildenhues wrote: This would assume that I am allowed to change the foreign Makefile.am files, Yes. What prevents this? The version control system, maybe? Code coming from another business units that I have to use as is? Or simply because it is read-only? and it assumes that there is no AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS. Why? This is trivial to check, too. Oh, you mean you would need several copies of some_snippet.am? Well, you can adjust the path for subpackages. A bit more work, but still not much. Of course I can manually append include statements to all files, verify whether the include statement has been included before, or avoid some Makefile.am files when doing this. But I could run sed over some Makefile templates, or even write Makefiles on my own, too, so this no argument. Why not add this functionality to Automake? Processing the Makefile.am files is Automake's job, anyway. Surely I don't have as much experience in m4 processing as you, but I doubt that it is that difficult. If something like this is supposed to be run, then it should work on the generated Makefile.in files. (That would be the job of automake, anyway.) The some_snippet.am would have to be converted into some_snippet.in in $(top_srcdir), and this would break the $(top_srcdir) variable for all Makefiles in subdirectories. I don't understand this. Why can't you change Makefile.am before running automake? Is it because you are neither the packages' author nor do you have the tools to modify the package? I am not the owner of all the packages I want to include in my project. It is a modular environment, i.e. other projects might want to use the same modules, but with their own configure.ac. The module developers should not have to care about additional build targets we want to introcude for each project (e.g. how to handle the coverage reports, or to create purify executables, or to provide a common test framework for all). Please clarify the reason for your seemingly unreasonable constraints. To me, they make no sense, because here: I would like to add recursive targets to extend the test framework (e.g. to not stop testing completely if a single unittest fails in a subdirectory deep inside), or to recursively create a coverage report, to add common build targets for the documentation, and so on. What is the test framework composed of? Simple Automake TESTS/ check_* stuff, or Autotest, or DejaGNU, or something else? This is our own test framework (well, it would be, if there would be a way to push some common code into all Makefiles). My suggestion would be something like this: Some macro in configure.ac You suggest adding stuff to configure.ac. No, I would like to get a macro I can use in configure.ac. Why is it that you may adjust configure.ac (and possibly subpackages' configure.ac files?) but not Makefile.am files? I don't touch the configure.ac in the subpackages. The top level configure.ac is created by using information stored in the modules, in a file describing my own configuration parameters, in a project configuration file, plus some framework. AM_ADD_TARGET([mytarget],[dependencies], some program lines could go here ) It could be used to create targets mytarget and mytarget-am as for the existing recursive targets, to add mytarget-recursive to $(RECURSIVE_TARGETS), to add it to .PHONY, and so on. I can see the usefulness of something vaguely similar to this, but I don't see why you need it in the issue you describe. See above. Of course this might introduce problems, too (e.g. when using recursive targets in the dependencies). It would be necessary to document the difference between install and install-am, for example. To summarize: you still have not convinced me, that the problem you really want to solve is best solved the way you describe. If you can make the problem space clear, there may be a chance that someone can suggest a better way to solve it. I would like to have a modular solution for a problem that (in my experience) comes up very often: How to create your own recursive targets. I think we have the chance to improve Automake very much here. Regards Harri
how to extend the Makefile templates?
Hi folks, I would need some way to add recursive targets to all generated Makefiles, without asking every owner of every Makefile.am to append some include statement or some keyword to be replaced by AC_SUBST_FILE. What would be your suggestion to solve this? Regards Harri
Re: how to extend the Makefile templates?
Hi Harald, * Harald Dunkel wrote on Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 12:39:46PM CEST: I would need some way to add recursive targets to all generated Makefiles, without asking every owner of every Makefile.am to append some include statement or some keyword to be replaced by AC_SUBST_FILE. Hmm. I remember you asking a similar question before. What would be your suggestion to solve this? I don't have a good answer to your specific question at the moment (short of extending Automake). But I have a suggestion for questions such as yours: For other people (e.g. me), requirements such as above would be much easier to understand if a good reason for it was given as well. I mean, what is it that prevents you from doing something like this find $top_srcdir -name Makefile.am | while read file do echo 'include $top_srcdir/some_snippet.am' $file done once and for all? Cheers, Ralf
