From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2003-01-20T09:31:25+09:00
Subject: Re: [RFC] mkmf.rb - add files to clean and distclean targets

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Michal Rokos wrote:
> 	I think it could be handy to make possible adding files to 'clean' and 
> 'distclean' sections of Makefile.
> 	What do you think?

I've written an extension but it is different enough from regular
mkmf-using extensions that after the makefile is written, I reread the
makefile, perform a dozen of sub!/gsub!'s on it, and rewrite it. I've been
tempted to do away with mkmf, but I'm keeping it so that I don't have to
deal with some crossplatform compatibility issues.

The most annoying parts of mkmf are:

1. no C++ support (I stopped using C). I have to change gcc for g++; The
former works fine only on certain platforms with certain versions of the
compiler. For the rest, "g++" has to be used.

2. no support for other languages/situations (I generate assembly
language code from a ruby script). If mkmf is not going to support that
(which is fine with me), then it could at least provide a means to plug
my own makefile additions in. This includes hooks into
rules all/clean/distclean/etc.

3. no support for multiple directories of source files (I have three).

4. I don't know what's supposed to be the difference between site-install
and install, but the directory that "install" installs into is not the one
my extension was installing into before mkmf came here.

5. Where is documentation supposed to be installed? (this is not a
mkmf-specific issue)

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju