Re: [bug-inetutils] Re: inetutils release...

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > [please allow for atleast 2 days of wait time, less than 24 hours is
   > far to short for anyone to react if they have anything to say]

   I'll wait until next week to push anything here.

Was just refering to that if one asks for comments then waiting less
than one day is to little time; not that you should wait with pushing
a patch that you consider OK; if you do, push it!

   >    +telnet.1: $(top_srcdir)/telnet/main.c $(top_srcdir)/configure.ac
   >    +       $(HELP2MAN) \
   >    +               --name="User interface to TELNET" \
   >    +               --output=$@ $(top_builddir)/telnet/telnet$(EXEEXT)
   >
   > Is there no easier way to do this than duplicate each rule?

   The rules aren't completely similar, several things will vary between
   each man page:

     1) the --name parameter is different for each tool (but maybe a .x
        file is a better idea here), and

     2) the dependencies will be different for each tool, and

     3) the binary name to use will also be different for each tool.

   Ideas for better approaches welcome, I don't see any _easy_ solution
   that reduces redundancy, although there may be some more complex
   solutions that would reduce redundancy.

   I'm not sure if more complexity is better than less redundancy though,
   both are unwanted properties.

How about something like (depends on GNU Make, but I do not see that
as a problem),

# $(call help2man-rule, TOOL-NAME, DESC, DEPEND)
#   Target for help2man generation.
define help2man-rule
$1.1: $(top_srcdir)/$1/$3 $(top_srcdir)/configure.ac
        $(HELP2MAN) \
          --name="$2" \
          --output=$@ $(top_builddir)/$1/$1$(EXEEXT)
endef

$(call help2man-rule, telnet, Telnet client, main.c)
$(call help2man-rule, rsh, Remote shell client, rsh.c)
...