On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 07:57:58PM +1100, Tim Cross wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Apr 2021 at 18:33, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> > > From: Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>
> > > Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2021 14:10:50 +1100
> > > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > >
> > > I wonder if it would be possible for make maintainer-clean to somehow
> > > look at what is in .gitignore and ensure anything in there is also
> > > removed? Would be good if at least that target returned the repo to an
> > > exact replica of what you would get if you did a fresh clone.

If you want /that/, then don't ask make -- ask git :-)

Look into `git clean'. Lots of options for cases where you want it actually
to remove files (-f) or just to tell you (-n), whether to remove only ignored
files (-X) or everything not known by the repo (-x) and so on. Decisions,
decisions :-)

I usually go with -fx. Teaches me hard lessons whenever my living room is
untidy :-D

I think one should strive to keep repo and build system as orthogonal as
possible (although they both fight hard against that ;-)

Cheers
 - t