> Not that the current Makefile is too pretty (I have seen worse), but it
works and it is fairly compact for a project of
> this complexity, it handles a large number of operating systems and build
options very efficiently.
>
> I think you found that out with your rewriting exercise - your version of
the Makefile contains all the same code,
> just rearranged to suite your taste, with existing bugs preserved and new
bugs added.
I derived the new Makefile from the original one so that feathers and bugs are
also included.
I havn't experiences on platforms other than Linux and MacOS, so I cannot
recognize bugs on
other platforms if they exists in the original one. And if there are bugs,
hope users can figure
them out.
>
> As they say, the devil is in the details. I notice some subtle changes in
your Makefile that make me go "what?":
>
> 1) the command for building the midas shared library used to be "ld -
shared", in your version, "-shared" is gone.
> But check with the GCC manual, today's recommended command is probably "gcc -
shared".
Fixed.
> 2) mhdump is now linked with ROOT, but I wrote it recently enough to
remember that it does not use ROOT
The building dependence on ROOT of mhdump may be eliminated by changing the
specific target.
> 3) hand-crafted dependancies have been replaced with generic "almost
every .o depends on every .h", which is
> incorrect. The "almost every .o" part bothers me.
Fixed now.
> 4) "make clean" runs "rm -rf" - plain scary.
Fixed.
> 5) "$(shell ...)" is overused
Replaced with GNU make internal methods.
> I think by the end all these little details are sorted out and all the
quirks are put back in, your Makefile will look no
> better than the current Makefile.
I realized it now. But anyway, it looks tidy to me now. I still hope to use
AUTOTOOLS with MIDAS.
> > 2. The file is less than 400 lines now. The original one is more than 500
lines.
The new one is about 430 lines. Hmmm, it reaches the original one which is
more than 600 lines.
>
> It looks like your savings came from removing comments, removing hand-
crafted dependancy lists and replacing
> fairly verbose "make install" targets (which we do not use anyway) with your
own much simpler scripts.
>
> All the juicy bits needed to actually build all the code appear to take
about as much space as before.
>
> Also the original mistake of recompiling programs when they only need
relinking was not fixed. (For example,
> when libmidas is updated, to update mhttpd, the current Makefile needlessly
recompiles mhttpd.c. Better use
> would be to compile mhttpd.c into mhttpd.o, then only a relink is needed).
Fixed.
>
> Most experience with autoconf/automake is all negative. The promise
was "never debug your Makefile ever
> again!", delivered was "debug the configure script instead!". In practice,
with autoconf/automake, you try to run
> configure, kludge it until it stops crashing, then tweak the
incomprehensible Makefiles it produces until the code
> compiles.
>
> K.O.
====================================================
Maybe BUGS or FEATURES in this new one:
1. The shared libmidas.so and the static libmidas.a are built sperately.
The "libmidas.a" is
always built whether "NEED_SHLIB" is set or not. And all executables are built
staticly default.
I commented this in the Makefile-by-EL. Hence, if you want to use libmidas.so
with PyMIDAS and
do not want to encounter "Segmentation fault" while executing the utilies
linked dynamicly, you
may try this one.
2. I found that "minife" is failed to be built, so I remove it from the
example list.
3. Some bugs while building on MacOS Tiger 10.4.11 PPC are commented out in
the Makefile. These
bugs are still exists in the original one.
4. Using "VPATH" instead of adding pathnames.
5. Using "UTILS_SUID" to handle utilities which need SUID mode. And
the "UTILS_SUID_NEED" may be
defined in the OS-specific field, so you need not to use OS-specific commands
in the "install"
target.
6. Using "tr" with "uname" in order to delete some extra "ifeq
($(OSTYPE),...)".
7. Other things, please see the file.
Anyway, easier building is my purpose. :-) |