[Python-Dev] End of the mystery "@README.txt Mercurial bug"

[Victor Stinner]

Hi Georg,

2013/7/1 Georg Brandl <g.brandl at gmx.net>:
> Am 26.06.2013 16:24, schrieb Victor Stinner:
>> 2013/6/26 Eric V. Smith <eric at trueblade.com>:
>>> I think that's exactly what's happening.
>>>
>>> From the bug report:
>>>
>>>         find $(srcdir) '(' -name '*.fdc' -o -name '*~' \
>>>                            -o -name '[@,#]*' -o -name '*.old' \
>>>                            -o -name '*.orig' -o -name '*.rej' \
>>>                            -o -name '*.bak' ')' \
>>>                            -exec rm -f {} ';'
>>>
>>> Will find files beginning with '@' inside subdirectories of $(srcdir)/.hg.
>>
>> In my opinion, make distclean should only remove files generated by
>> configure and a build. It should not remove random files.
>>
>> *~, .orig, .rej, .back should be kept. They are not generated by
>> configure nor make.
>
> I think you want "make clean" then.

I don't understand why you are suggesting me to use "make clean". I
would like to start a fresh build, so remove configure and Makefile,
but I also want to keep my local changes and local files not tracked
by Mercurial. I need this when the build does not work because a new
file was added or a build script was modified. "make clean" does not
change anything for this use case.

For example, I don't understand why "make distclean" removes the
"tags" file. Generating this file takes 20 to 30 seconds on my slow
laptop, and it is not generated by Python build system, but by the
external ctags program.

Don't you think that we need two different "distclean" commands? One
GNU-style "distclean" which only removes configure and Makefile, and
another "distclean" which is the GNU "distclean" + the extra find
removing temporary files.

Victor