On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, Simon Burge wrote:

> > + 	if cmp -s ${PATCH_SUM_FILE}.new ${PATCH_SUM_FILE} ""; then	\
> > + 		${RM} -f ${PATCH_SUM_FILE}.new;				\
> > + 		${ECHO_MSG} "patch-sum file unchanged!";		\
> > + 	else								\
> 		${ECHO_MSG} ">> Updating ${PATCH_SUM_FILE}";		\
> > + 		${MV} ${PATCH_SUM_FILE}.new ${PATCH_SUM_FILE};		\
> >   	fi)
> >   .endif

That strikes me as unecessary, since it's only doing what you told 
it to do. My thought is to report only errors, not success. The case
where it simply creates a new file, I consider the normal case.

Hmm, that would say "Updating /usr/pkgsrc/foo/bar/files/patch-sum",
which is not exactly what you want, is it?
 
> Do we consistantly use or not use a ">> " at the start of informational
> messages?

It looks like many progress messages use "===>", but error messages
come in all flavors, and it's not consistent. How about...  

  ${ECHO_MSG} "===> Calculating new checksums for patch files"

at the head, and then prefix the error reports with ">> "?