Re: [PATCH] Documentation/Makefile: don't re-build on 'git version' changes

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 6, 2021, 22:25 UTC
Message-ID: <60e4d85d94e80_1c42812084a@natae.notmuch>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqh7h8mtzh.fsf@gitster.g>

Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> I am OK with the approach you hinted to have an option to _hide_ the
> version string in the generated documentation (hence they lose their
> dependency on GIT-VERSION-FILE), while keeping the dependency of
> version.o on GIT-VERSION-FILE, so that something goes wrong in a
> built binary, the developer can still ask "git version" to identify
> where the binary came from.

But it would be even better if the build system knew what was the intent of the build.

There's a difference when building a revision just to run `make test` on it, and building it to do `make install`. In the former there's no need for a real version in version.o, only in the latter.

Maybe RELASE=1. Not a release from the point of view of a maintainer, but a release in the sense that the binaries will escape our in-tree build.

-- 
Felipe Contreras