Bug 226819 – sci-libs/plplot: patch (plplot-5.5.1-gcc-3.4-fix.patch) changes both autotools source and result

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Diego Elio Pettenò (RETIRED) 2008-06-14 17:28:00 UTC]

The patch in summary is touching both Makefile.in and Makefile.am, probably to avoid autotools rebuild.

This treatment is usually reserved for a few selected system packages that cannot have their autotool scripts rebuilt.

This _could_ cause maintainermode-driven rebuild (see http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2008/06/13/maintaner-mode ), which is something we should be avoiding as much as possible.

Please just patch Makefile.am and/or configure.in/.ac and rebuild autotools, unless you have very good reasons not to.

[Comment 1 Markus Dittrich (RETIRED) 2008-06-18 10:09:17 UTC]

Hi Diego,

I presume it would also be ok to patch Makefile.in *only*
which would be sufficient to get plplot to compile
against octave?

Thanks,
Markus

[Comment 2 Diego Elio Pettenò (RETIRED) 2008-06-18 11:00:16 UTC]

Uh no, patching Makefile.am and .in is opinable (I find it not entirely safe as it might cause maintainer mode to trigger), patching just Makefile.in is simply wrong because the first time someone else add another patch that requires rebuilding autotools, your Makefile.in patch is gone.

[Comment 3 Markus Dittrich (RETIRED) 2008-06-19 12:42:54 UTC]

Hi Diego!

Thanks for the note and that makes sense. However, this then also 
implies to me that any patching of *.in files or configure itself
for that matter carries that same danger, which in turn implies that any
patching that affects some autotool component should always
be done to configure.ac and Makefile.am only. Is there something
I am missing here or is that indeed the proper policy for dealing with
autotools? I am curious, because I've seen (and personally added) quite 
a few patches to configure itself for example.

Thanks much for explanations; I appreciate them!

Best,
Markus

[Comment 4 Sébastien Fabbro (RETIRED) 2009-01-29 18:27:58 UTC]

Will probably not get fixed now plplot is at much later version and with cmake.
Keeping it open until we have newer version stabilized.

[Comment 5 Sébastien Fabbro (RETIRED) 2009-12-03 21:51:07 UTC]

plplot-5.5.x gone.