Re: 03texi2txt.diff

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Derek" == Derek Robert Price <address@hidden> writes:

 Derek> CVS has had rules in its doc/Makefile.am for awhile to generate .txt 
files from
 Derek> texinfos.  Basically it just requires the passage of --no-headers to 
makeinfo.

 Derek> I've included a patch that uses the dvi, info, pdf, and
 Derek> ps targets as a model to define txt targets that build
 Derek> .txt files from all texinfos.

Thanks, but new features should also come with documentation,
tests, and NEWS entry, otherwise we will forget about them and
they are guaranteed to break in the future.  I guess this is
just a matter of adding "make txt" near any mention of "make
html" (even in test cases).  html will be a new target in 1.8
too.

But see the heavy note in NEWS about the various ways the new
"html" target can break existing packages.  This would apply to
"txt" too.  Each time a new recursive target is added, it's a
problem with embedded third party packages that are not aware of
this new target.  For instance gettext's intl/Makefile.in
contains

  info dvi ps pdf html:

because Bruno was aware of the upcoming html target; but this
Makefile would fail `make txt'.

I'm curious to know when is `make txt' used.  Is it
important/useful enough to excuse such hassle?
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz