Re: .cvsignore and .gitignore

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Reuben Thomas wrote:
> There seem to be basically two classes of user when it comes to what is 
> ignored:
> 
> 1. gnulib is considered as a build dependency, so no files provided or 
> generated by gnulib are put in CVS/git.
> 
> 2. gnulib is not considered as a build dependency, so files provided by 
> gnulib are put in CVS/git, but files generated from them are not.

Yes, this is also how the gnulib documentation, section "Issues with Version
Control Systems", describes it.

> However, at present, my .gitignore files in m4 and lib appear to list 
> precisely those files provided by gnulib, and not those generated during the 
> build process. This is precisely the opposite of what I want as a case 2 
> user, and is insufficient for a case 1 user.

The doc says that if you're a case 2, you can pass the option --no-vc-files
to gnulib-tool. This will solve half of your problem.

The other half is that you have files generated from "make" while you perform
VCS operations, and you wish them to be added to .cvsignore or .gitignore.
That is an issue you should bring up with the automake developers, IMO. If
you were developing packages without gnulib, that use the automake
BUILT_SOURCES variable, you would have the same problem.

Bruno