Minor side point: the "tail +7" option is deprecated by POSIX, replaced by "tail -n+7". Official GNU documentation should preferably follow POSIX.
David On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 5:27 PM Bruno Haible <br...@clisp.org> wrote: > Dmitry Goncharov wrote: > > > 1) The title, and what does the user want? > > This patch is not a full-fledged troubleshooting guide. > ... > > > Is that really what I want to do and should do, as a user? > > i believe, makefile authors should apply these techniques. > > OK, then it's appropriate to create *three* new sections: > * In the chapter "Troubleshooting": > - "Which rules would be executed, and why?" > * In an appendix or chapter "Optimizing Makefiles" > - "Disabling implicit rules entirely" > => MAKEFLAGS > - "Disabling implicit rules for a particular target" > => makefile::; > > The sections can have some overlap, e.g. all of these three will > use "make -n -d", but with different focus. > > > How about "How to relieve make from redundant work and reduce the > > amount of debug output."? > > I believe these two user goals are so different; they belong in different > chapters. > > > My opinion is that, large amounts of debug output is not the problem. > > I disagree: I believe that 80%-90% of the developers, when they see > 1000 lines of debug/trace output, give up understanding it after 5 seconds > and try alternative approaches. (This is based on observing the habits > of my developer colleagues at work.) > > > > Can the addition of 'makefile::;' be replaced by a make option or > > > by some (sed-based?) postprocessing? > > > > There is no option. > > You can grep away most of the matching lines with 'grep -v makefile'. > > Then it's useful to present this as a filter in the troubleshooting > section. > > Bruno > > > > >
