Re: Proposed gnulib renames

[Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>]

Hi Eli,

> > 1) About c++defs.h:
> > 
> > I have proposed in [2] a modification to the Emacs sources that will ensure
> > that
> >   - No c++defs.h is contained in the build.
> >   - A gnulib-local/modules/c++defs.diff file is contained in the tarball but
> >     not used in the build. According to Eli [3][4] the djtar program can
> >     deal with such a file automatically.
> 
> IIUC, the file gnulib-local/modules/c++defs.diff is a patch to be
> applied by gnulib-tool when it reads c++defs from the gnulib
> directory.  But what is the file gnulib-local/build-aux/cxxdefs.h for?
> 
> Also, the patch in gnulib-local/modules/c++defs.diff would need to be
> updated from time to time, when c++defs in gnulib changes
> significantly, is that right?
> 
> Finally, what is the file c++defs that will be patched by that patch?
> I see no such file in Emacs at the moment.

This was an approach that meant to use gnulib-tool built-in functionality,
with no post-processing of the generated Makefile.am. The cxxdefs.h is
the replacement for c++defs.h (which would be a file with an undesired
name, needed during the build). This file and gnulib-local/modules/c++defs.diff
would indeed have to change when major changes are being done to this module,
but this is not going to happen frequently. The c++defs.diff file is a patch,
that would be stored in the Emacs repository, for a file c++defs that is
stored in the gnulib repository.

Another approach, that may be simpler to put in place, is to change the
script that invokes gnulib-tool so that it
  1) renames build-aux/c++defs.h to build-aux/cxxdefs.h
  2) post-processes the generated Makefile.am, replacing "c++defs" with
     "cxxdefs".
This approach requires post-processing, but will require less frequent
updates after changes in gnulib.

> > 2) About *.in.h include files:
> > [...]
> > The simplest way to deal with this is that the script for updating the
> > Emacs sources from gnulib
> >   1. runs "gnulib-tool"
> >   2. looks at list of lib/*.in.h files,
> >   3. performs some 'mv' commands to rename them,
> >   4. performs some sed replacements on the generated Makefile.am.
> 
> That's fine with me, but these Sed replacements could be done by
> config.bat only for the DOS build.  Of course, it's slightly more
> complicated to do that with DOS shells, but it's certainly doable.

I was under the impression that you wanted to have this renaming done
already in the tarball and, in consequence, also in the Emacs repository.
If the renaming can be limited to the DOS based checkouts, that's of course
more work for you but better for everyone else.

Bruno