build system causing waaaay too many rebuilds

[ossi]

the build system puts the git version into config.h, which basically means that each git operation which modifies HEAD will cause a full rebuild. this is highly annoying, in particular during bisecting.

i suggest throwing VERSION out of config.h and having the relevant files include version.h directly. that would also have the advantage of removing the version.h parsing from the configure script.

[andrew_b]

Replying to ossi:

removing the version.h parsing from the configure script.

version.h is parsed to set correct version of RPM and DEB packages during automatic build of master branch (see #1905).

[ossi]

it would be possible to do the substitutions as a dependency (or part) of the respective packaging targets - the package definition files need only one or two substitutions each, so it isn't particularly bothersome. definitely better than re-running configure each time ...

[slyfox]

It's also used in contrib/dist/redhat/mc.spec.in, so it might be not so trivial.
Simpler solution would be to put some hack to version.sh which would disable or force certain nonchanging version ID.

[ossi]

it's just one file more, so why would it matter?

i already thought about the hardcoded version hack as well, but it's rather annoying to use (for one, activating it already requires a recompile).

[andrew_b]

Ticket #3153 has been marked as a duplicate of this ticket.

[andrew_b]

Related to #3603.

[ossi]

Closed as duplicate of #4125.
clearly, i used the wrong keywords, as i didn't find my own ticket from a decade ago (also, i didn't remember it even existed, heh). FAIL.

fun fact: i initially hacked up a patch that implemented exactly what i described here. then i thought again, and did something different which is more effective and a smaller diff.

the new ticket has a patch and a description that matches it, so closing the old one.

[andrew_b]

Branch: 2252_rebuild
Initial changeset:f4090d80e57d261edeb666c6d855f443731d9493

Now only lib/global.c depends on mc-version.h.
config.status --recheck is run in any case, but only lib/global.c is recompiled after git commit.

[ossi]

that's a lot better, and probably a reasonable default behavior, but still kinda annoying when doing active development or "archaeology". i'll keep applying my patch on top of this.

btw, the commit message of the first commit in the series is kinda weird, as it makes the commits formally non-atomic. the explanation should be in the "juicy" 2nd commit, while the first one can say something trivial like "rename ..., as it won't be handled according to normal autoconf rules soon" or some such.

[andrew_b]

Branch is repushed.
Main commit is first now. More comments are added.

[andrew_b]

Merged to master: [f67b6c1d00cbbe250800c4b8858a6d9ba68fdf8d].

git log --pretty=oneline b5febbdd9..f67b6c1d0