[OctDev] octave-forge build

[Paul K. <pki...@us...>]

Octave-forge often has build problems.  For most
people, these problems don't matter.  I would like
an elegant way to build everything by default, but
instead of stopping on errors build everything that
can be built.

The point of this is to cut down on tech support
requests.  Since many functions are independent
of each other, whether a function is built only matters
if somebody wants to use it.  However, to avoid a
false sense of security, I want to list the functions that
couldn't be built and go on.

The best I can think of is to introduce -k at the top level
and have it propagate to the submakes:

$(SUBMAKEDIRS):
	-cd $@ && $(MAKE) -k $(MAKECMDGOALS)

Collecting the failed targets is trickier.  Maybe if
each significant target operation were something like:
	$(call log,<command>)
where log is defined something like:
	log = if !$(1); then echo $@ failed in `pwd` >> $(TOPDIR)/log

If it really doesn't make sense to build one function if another
doesn't exist  then an explicit dependency will stop the follow-on
functions from being built if they are not strictly required.

Is this a problem that needs to be solved?

Is this solution as simple as it could be, but no simpler?

Can anyone suggest an alternative?

Thanks,

Paul Kienzle
pki...@us...