Re: Install issues

> Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 05:31:01PM +0100, "H.Merijn Brand" <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >> --- Makefile.org	2008-11-10 17:29:53.000000000 +0100
> >> +++ Makefile	2008-11-10 17:29:39.000000000 +0100
> >> @@ -1329,6 +1329,10 @@ check-sha1:: test-sha1$X
> >>  	./test-sha1.sh
> >>  
> >>  check: common-cmds.h
> >> +	@`sparse </dev/null 2>/dev/null` || (\
> >> +	    echo "The 'sparse' command is not available, so I cannot make the 'check' target" ;\
> >> +	    echo "Did you mean 'make test' instead?" ;\
> >> +	    exit 1 )
> >>  	for i in *.c; do sparse $(ALL_CFLAGS) $(SPARSE_FLAGS) $$i || exit; done
> >
> > Please read Documentation/SubmittingPatches, your patch lacks a signoff
> > and a commit message.
> 
> Heh, for something small and obvious like this, that's asking a tad too
> much, although a properly formatted message does reduce my workload and is
> appreciated.

> I said "obvious" not in the sense that it is "obviously good".  It is
> obvious what issue the patch wants to address.
> 
> Having said that, it is far from clear if special casing "make check" like
> this is a good thing, though.  The crufts resulting from "Four extra lines
> won't hurt" kind of reasoning can accumulate and snowball.  Is reading the
> Makefile when your build fails in order to see if the target was what you
> really wanted to invoke (ideally, it should rater be "_before_ running
> make, reading the Makefile to find out what you want to run") a lost art
> these days?