Re: old tex files in repository

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Sunday, 11 September 2011, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> Dear list,
> 
> When I try to build gnuplot, the following two files are modified:
> 
> # modified:   share/LaTeX/gnuplot-lua-tikz.sty
> # modified:   src/version.c

The file share/LaTeX/gnuplot-lua-tikz.sty is not in the CVS
repository.  It is auto-generated at build time.

> The second one only has a trivial change:
> 
>  const char gnuplot_patchlevel[] = "0";
> -const char gnuplot_date[] = "August 2011";
> +const char gnuplot_date[] = "2011-09-09 ";
>  const char gnuplot_copyright[] = "Copyright (C) 1986-1993, 1998,
> 2004, 2007-2011";
> 
> but the first one seems to be completely outdated:

You must have somehow left an old copy in your source tree.  
It is not in the current CVS, so it will never be updated.

> Should gnuplot-lua-tikz.sty be removed from CVS (if it is
> auto-generated)?

See above.  It was removed from CVS long ago.

> I also noticed that pdffigures.tex is rebuilt automagically:
> 
> --- a/docs/pdffigures.tex
> +++ b/docs/pdffigures.tex
> @@ -1,7 +1 @@
> -%
> -% $Id: pdffigures.tex,v 1.1 2010/03/08 23:41:15 sfeam Exp $
> -%
> -% This file is modified dynamically by "make" depending on whether or not
> -% figures are to be included in the documentation
> -% \usepackage{graphicx}
> -% \usepackage{picins}
> +
> 
> Why is pdffigures.tex included in CVS if it is built during "make pdf" anyway?

The comment you quote attempts to explain this.
The top-level file titlepag.tex contains a line
\include{pdffigures}
In order to toggle whether or not the figure-generation code is
_really_ used, the Makefile either creates appropriate file contents
for pdffigures.tex or creates an empty file with that name.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in TeX syntax knows how make the
latex "\include" statement conditional on some external variable,
which would be an alternative way to accomplish the same thing.
 
> I would really really really like to have ./configure script in CVS
> repository, but the main reason against that was that this is a
> generated file. Still, it would help many users without (or with old
> version of) autotools to be able to build gnuplot. 

> On the other hand these files (pdffigures, gnuplot-lua-tikz.sty, ...)
> are rebuild without my intervention and my version control tools constantly
> complain that these files have been changed. I need to be very careful
> not to commit the changes.

You obviously have a different work-flow than I do.
The contents of my local copy of the CVS source are normally changed
only by the "cvs update" operation, so the issues you mention
do not arise.  I am guessing that because you are locally modifying
these files (and not deleting obsolete files?) the various time 
stamps and directory contents are not truly in sync with the 
CVS repository, which is causing the problems you see.

I realize the different people have different work-flows, so 
"it works for me" is not the end of the story.  But I suggest that
at a minimum you need to identify a command that gives you a clean
copy of current CVS, one that doesn't also contain obsolete or
locally-modified file versions.

	Ethan