Subject: Re: searchable mailing lists/adding a system call
To: Andrew Brown <atatat@atatdot.net>
From: Tom Ivar Helbekkmo <tih@Norway.EU.net>
List: current-users
Date: 08/11/1999 08:10:10
Andrew Brown <atatat@atatdot.net> writes:

> it'd be kinda nice if the installer could check each file to see if it
> had actually be updated before actually installing new copies and
> stomping all over the modification times.  kinda like the way that
> config builds the little opt_foo.h files for the kernel.  :)

If I understand you correctly, what you want is to put the statement

UPDATE=yes

in your /etc/mk.conf file.  See /usr/share/mk/bsd.README for more
information.  Beware of modification time problems tricking `make',
though!  Consider this scenario:

Time T:	foo.c modified at repository
T+1:	you fetch foo.c
T+2:	foo.c modified at repository again
T+3:	you run make; it compiles foo.c
T+4:	you fetch foo.c again
T+5:	you run make; it thinks foo.o is up to date

In other words, you had better be sure you update your sources in a
way that makes the new modification time of the source file be the
time of the local update, _not_ the time stamp of the file where you
fetch it from.  CVS does this right, fetching tar files of sources
doesn't.

-tih
-- 
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"