Re: Building the .info files in build directory.

[Simon Richter]

Simon,

> > [Info files being built in source dir]

> > When the source dir is readonly, noone can change the texinfo files. If
> > noone can change the texinfo files, there is no need to rebuild the info
> > files, so it doesn't matter that they're in a readonly directory.

> I don't think this is true in general, a texinfo file could @include a
> file that is built during the build phase.

True, however that's a bad thing IMO, as it requires the user to have a
working texinfo installation. 

> (For example, I generate Texinfo code documenting the library based on
> comments in the source files, and some source files may be generated,
> as in foo.h.in -> foo.h to add version information to a header file.
> Compare http://josefsson.org/gdoc/.)

I've not yet come across a point where it is necessary or a good idea to
extract documentation from source files generated at the user's site.

For stuff that depends on the local software configuration (for example,
the locally installed ORB), it is usually better to generate
documentation from the source rather than from the generated files.
Stuff like the version information can easily be updated automatically
when configure.ac is changed (make dist will update the header file and
the documentation before bundling the archive), and machine-dependent
stuff should be abstracted away by the API anyway.

   Simon

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