Julien,

On 30/04/17 19:22, Julien Lepiller wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> here is a patch to update hexchat to 2.12.4.

...great! I was just doing the exact same thing. :-D

> Subject: [PATCH] gnu: hexchat: Update to 2.12.4.
>
> * gnu/packages/messaging.scm (hexchat): Update to 2.12.4.

The commit message must also mention new native-inputs, phases, etc.

>   (native-inputs `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)
> -                   ("intltool" ,intltool)))
> +                   ("intltool" ,intltool)
> +                   ("autoconf" ,autoconf)
> +                   ("autoconf-archive" ,autoconf-archive)
> +                   ("automake" ,automake)
> +                   ("libtool" ,libtool)))

Even though these weren't sorted to begin with, it would be nice to do
so now.

> + (arguments
> +  `(#:phases
> +    (modify-phases %standard-phases
> +      (add-after 'unpack 'autogen

Nitpick: as the sources do contain an actual ‘autogen.sh’ — which we're
not calling — I'd just call this ‘bootstrap’ or so. Avoids confusion.

> +                 (lambda* (#:key inputs #:allow-other-keys)

It looks like something went wrong with the indentation of this block.
The ‘(’ of ‘(lambda’ should be under the first ‘d’ of ‘(add-after’.

> + ;; these files are symlinks to /usr and cannot be used.

Another nitpick: full-line comment, so ‘;; These’.

> + (with-directory-excursion "m4"
> +   (for-each (lambda (f) (delete-file f))
> +             '("intltool.m4" "libtool.m4" "lt~obsolete.m4"
> +               "ltoptions.m4" "ltsugar.m4" "ltversion.m4")))
> + (delete-file-recursively "build-aux")
> + (delete-file "po/Makefile.in.in")

I'd move all of this to a separate snippet.
These files can cause pain when building manually, too.

> + (copy-file (string-append (assoc-ref inputs "intltool")
> +                           "/share/intltool/Makefile.in.in")
> +            "po/Makefile.in.in")

Ah, so this is what I was hunting down when your mail appeared.
Good catch!

I've taken the liberty to attach my patch[1] as well; it illustrates
some of the points mentioned above. Do with it what you will... :-)

Thanks!

T G-R

[1]: Audience question, somewhat: ‘guix lint’ complains that

  hexchat@2.12.4: 'glib:bin' should probably be a native input

If no-one disagrees I'll dig up why & add it in a follow-up.