mcgrath%homer.Berkeley.EDU@GINGER.BERKELEY.EDU (Roland McGrath) (12/01/89)
I would like to know what GNU Make's built-in rules for RCS should look like. I am interested in the opinions and experiences of people who use RCS and know what they are talking about. If you don't fall into this category, please don't respond. The issue is when to overwrite existing RCS working files. The current rules (as of version 3.57) do: test -f $@ || $(CO) $(COFLAGS) $< $@ This will never overwrite an existing working file. It has been suggested that this be changed to: test -w $@ || $(CO) $(COFLAGS) $< $@ This would overwrite working files that are read-only (i.e., not locked). It has also been suggested that this be done, but that it also copy the modification time of the RCS file to the working file. Since there is no utility universally available to copy modification times, I am disinclined to try this. Please tell me what you think the rule should be, and why. Mail your responses to roland@ai.mit.edu. Please DO NOT post them to bug-gnu-utils/gnu.utils.bug. Thanks, Roland McGrath