Re: [Sdcc-user] New Debian package, 2.9.0

[Frieder F. <fri...@we...>]

Hi Gudjon,

Gudjon I. Gudjonsson schrieb:
> Hi
>    The Debian package has been upgraded and a prerelease can be found on my 
> server. Please test if you are interested.

thanks for the Debian packaging! I'm not (really) a Debian user
but nevertheless render SDCC being part of Debian _much_ more
important than SDCC being included in the distribution I happen
to be using.

> To make the the Debian package clean, I had to add the following commands to 
> the Debian rules file. Perhaps some of them can be added to the upstream 
> Makefile.
> rm -f support/cpp/config{args.h,.log,.status}
> rm -f sim/ucsim/config.{guess,sub,status,log}
> rm -f device/lib/small-stack-auto/Makefile
> rm -f as/link/asxxxx_config.h
> rm -f device/lib/large/*.asm
> rm -f device/lib/medium/*.asm
> rm -f device/lib/small/*.asm
> rm -f device/lib/small-stack-auto/*.asm
> find -type f -name '*.o' -exec rm -f {} \;
> find -type f -name '.stamp' -exec rm -f {} \;
> find . -name '*.rel' -exec rm -f {} \;
> find . -name '*.sym' -exec rm -f {} \;
> find . -name '*.lst' -exec rm -f {} \;

The Makefile itself unfortunately is not yet the upstream file.
(It's generated by ./configure using Makefile.in in various
directories... Sorry, I'm not familiar with that)

Admittedly "make clean" does not "make clean".

> The debian error reporter warns of an outdated ltmain.sh script
> W: sdcc source: ancient-libtool sim/ucsim/ltmain.sh 1.4.2

(cannot comment on this)

> Aurelien Jarno wrote manpages for Sdcc since it is a bug in Debian if an 
> executable in /usr/bin doesn't have one. I'm wondering if you are interested
> in adding these to upstream or if they should continue being only in the 
> Debian package.  I will review and update them soon.

We have documentation for SDCC (to be maintained) on three places then.

- first the admittedly sparse documentation given by "sdcc --help"
  which covers very basic usage.

- then the comparatively detailed documentation derived from sdccman.lyx
  (ending up in sdccman.txt, sdccman.pdf and html which is f.e. online on
  sourceforge).

- and then the man page(s). I really like man pages and the man page
  routinely is the first thing I look at/for whenever I start an
  unknown application. Or put differently: As a user I clearly
  dislike applications without a man page.

Yet there is a consistency/maintainance problem and eventually
providing a sparse man page (basically: "you are calling this and that,
use --help to know a little more otherwise consult the manual and, yes,
there also is a wiki"!) would do. (Not in sense of what to do if
we were in a perfect world, but rather in sense of what to do if
resources are limited).

Greetings,
Frieder