Eric Gallager wrote:
> What about a 3rd one of these prefixes: "novcs", to teach automake
> about which files belong in VCS or not? i.e. then you might have a
> variable name like:
> dist_novcs_DATA = foo bar baz
> ...which would indicate that foo, bar, and baz are data files that
> ought to be distributed in the release tarball, but not in the
> VCS-based one?
The maintainer already decides which files to put under version control,
on a per-file basis ('git add' vs. 'git rm'). Why should a maintainer
duplicate this information in a Makefile.am? The lists can then diverge,
leading to hassle.
> Or would it be easier to just teach automake to read
> .gitignore files and the like so that it can get that information from
> there?
Of course, if you want to have a Makefile target that needs the
information whether some file is in VCS, it should use 'git' commands
(such as 'git status') to determine this information. Whether it
additionally should read .gitignore files, can be debated on a case-by-case
basis.
Bruno
