Re: new major release?

[John W. Eaton]

On  8-Dec-2009, Rik wrote:

| I just checked in a patch that allows octave to pass 'make distcheck'
| (with the caveat of writeable src directories).  At this point, all of
| the documentation, and all of the source files both .texi and .txi, are
| shipped in the distribution. 

Thanks.

| There are some big advantages which trump the slightly larger
| distribution file.

Distributing the extra files is fine with me.

| The only outstanding issue is a VPATH build where srcdir != builddir. 
| The simple_move_if_change_rule fails for the DOCSTRINGS files because
| the @-t file is created in $(builddir), but the file to compare to is in
| $(srcdir).  Perhaps it would be worth writing a more complex
| move_if_change rule?

If you can see a way to do it, then great.  I looked at it last week
but wasn't getting it right.

| > So I'm ready to make the changes needed to use gnulib functions in
| > Octave.  Are there any further objections to doing that?
| >   
| I think it's safe to proceed.

OK, I've checked in my initial changes:

  http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/rev/55061c7c8d6e

This first patch introduces gnulib to the Octave build process by
using the strftime module from gnulib.

Please look at the file HACKING.  The autogen.sh script is
significantly changed.  It now just generates some Makefile fragments
and then calls the bootstrap script from gnulib.  That script takes
care of updating the gnulib sources, and calling libtoolize, autoconf,
and automake.  These changes work for me.  I trust that others here
will let me know if they encounter problems...

I'll be adding additional modules soon so to remove more of our
outdated replacement and portability functions from the Octave
sources.

jwe