Re: [Xenomai] [Xenomai-git] Jan Kiszka : Create gitignore for autotools files

[Gilles Chanteperdrix <gilles.chanteperdrix@xenomai.org>]

On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 08:06:46PM +0200, Jan Kiszka wrote:
> On 2015-04-01 19:19, Philippe Gerum wrote:
> > On 04/01/2015 06:30 PM, Jan Kiszka wrote:
> >> On 2015-04-01 18:20, Philippe Gerum wrote:
> >>> On 04/01/2015 04:26 PM, Jan Kiszka wrote:
> >>>> On 2015-04-01 14:58, Philippe Gerum wrote:
> >>>>> On 04/01/2015 02:51 PM, Gilles Chanteperdrix wrote:
> >>>>>> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 02:27:27PM +0200, git repository hosting wrote:
> >>>>>>> Module: xenomai-jki
> >>>>>>> Branch: for-forge
> >>>>>>> Commit: 519962c23a696aba736d8b535c8f1a00382dae8b
> >>>>>>> URL:    http://git.xenomai.org/?p=xenomai-jki.git;a=commit;h=519962c23a696aba736d8b535c8f1a00382dae8b
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Author: Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@siemens.com>
> >>>>>>> Date:   Wed Apr  1 14:25:42 2015 +0200
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Create gitignore for autotools files
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> This avoids filling up "git status" with tones of autotools files that
> >>>>>>> are now locally maintained.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I am not sure having a gitignore file in the repository is a good
> >>>>>> idea, for instance, it will conflict with the gitignore I already
> >>>>>> had, because not using the same autotools version as Philippe, my
> >>>>>> git status was already filled with tons of autotools files without a
> >>>>>> gitignore and before they were removed from the repository. I also
> >>>>>> like to add files to gitignore like *~ my editor creates, and so if
> >>>>>> my gitignore has local modifications, I will see it in the git
> >>>>>> status too.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'd rather refrain from forcing .gitignore on users too, what to filter
> >>>>> out should remain a local policy. However, we could provide a sane
> >>>>> default template for this file if that helps, e.g. scripts/gitignore.dot.
> >>>>
> >>>> See "man gitignore" for the common policy: .gitignore is already that
> >>>> baseline we want to distribute.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> "A project normally includes such .gitignore files in its repository,
> >>> containing patterns for files generated as part of the project build."
> >>>
> >>> Those files are not generated by the build process, but by the
> >>> configuration process, which is separate. What is produced even depends
> >>> on the autoconf release being used locally.
> >>
> >> By pulling everything that autoconf generates out of the repo, forcing
> >> the user of the git version to generate them yourself, you effectively
> >> made those files build outputs. As we cannot store them out-of-tree
> >> (like object files), we have to ignore them in-tree.
> > 
> > Sorry, no. We cannot predict what files will be produced by the autoconf
> > system when bootstrapping unless we know about the autoconf version
> > being used locally, which we don't. This should be a clear hint that
> > forcing a filter on users for such files is a bad idea in the first place.
> 
> Those files do not change arbitrarily, and, yes, we can easily update
> those as they come in via new version. That is how other project deal
> with the very same issue.

The point is: different users may use different versions of the
autotools. I use whatever the installed distribution provides, this
may not be the latest version. And I am certainly not going to
install anything else for this or that project, I would rather
change the project autotools files so that they work with that
version.

The version I use for instance, adds a config/compile script which
apparently the version you use does not have.

Anyway, by requiring users who work with git to have the autotools
installed, we are asking them to know how to use them, so, we may as
well expect them to know how to put the generated file names to a
.gitignore.

-- 
					    Gilles.