Re: guile-snarf writes to $srcdir, which is not kosher

[Marius Vollmer]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <address@hidden> writes:

>    A VPATH build is when you compile in a directory other than the source
>    directory.  This is useful when you want to compile a package for
>    different configurations but from a common source.  The name stems
>    from the fact that it is implemented using the VPATH variable of make.
> 
> could you describe VPATH as "configure in place, make from elsewhere"?
> or is configure done elsewhere also?

configure is run elsewhere also, in the same location as make.

> i've heard the latter referred to as srcdir!=builddir (and usually
> make is done where configure is).

Right, that's the one.  I know it by the name of "VPATH build" which I
admit is a quite obscure name.

> all i see is this:
> 
>   During snarfing, the pre-processor macro @code{SCM_MAGIC_SNARFER} is
>   defined.

Right.  I agree that this is a bit thin.  I have added more text to
make the intention clear.

> i'm assuming that whatever changes made to branch_release-1-6 that are
> long-term applicable would be also made in HEAD roughly concurrently,
> but i guess this is saved for later?

Yes, I was only concernd about getting 1.6 into working order, make it
compatible with guile-snarf from 1.4, and having it not offer
interface features that are likely to be redesigned.  I'm totally open
as to what will happen for 1.8, so I didn't change it there as well.