Re: Git help please - checking out old commit doesn't find lib/gnulib.mk.in.

[Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>]

On 11/13/2017 10:53 AM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> make distclean is broken.  It purports to remove all files generated by
> "configuring or building the program".

The intent is that 'make distclean' gets you back to a distribution 
tarball, if all you've done is 'configure; make'. But that doesn't seem 
to be what you're asking for. If I understand you correctly, you want 
something that gets you back to a fresh git checkout if all you've done 
is './autogen.sh; ./configure; make', and since 'make distclean' doesn't 
do what you're asking for, you're saying it's broken. If I'm right, it 
would be more accurate to say that 'make distclean' is simply a tool 
that doesn't do what you want.

Perhaps someone (you?) could implement a 'make gitclean' that does what 
you want.