make cleandocs issue: rm -rf /output when obj not defined

make cleandocs issue: rm -rf /output when obj not defined

[pioneer695]

In an attempt to get some readable documentation I cloned the git repository
to check how the PDF format is.

Entered Documentation and proceeded with:

	make pdfdocs

which failed, so to start fresh, my thought was that:

	make cleandocs

would be the next step before anything else. But, this resulted in:

	rm -rf /output

as $(obj) for some reason was empty.

Makefile for Documentation has:

	BUILDDIR      = $(obj)/output

	cleandocs:
		$(Q)rm -rf $(BUILDDIR)


This should (at least?!) be:

	BUILDDIR      = ./$(obj)/output
or:
	$(Q)rm -rf ./$(BUILDDIR)


Best regards,

Re: make cleandocs issue: rm -rf /output when obj not defined

[Jonathan Corbet]

pioneer695 <pioneer695@protonmail.com> writes:

> In an attempt to get some readable documentation I cloned the git repository
> to check how the PDF format is.
>
> Entered Documentation and proceeded with:
>
> 	make pdfdocs
>
> which failed, so to start fresh, my thought was that:
>
> 	make cleandocs
>
> would be the next step before anything else. But, this resulted in:
>
> 	rm -rf /output

That's not good...

> as $(obj) for some reason was empty.

*This* would appear to be the real problem.  If you could do some
digging to figure out why that happened, I suspect that would be
useful. 

> Makefile for Documentation has:
>
> 	BUILDDIR      = $(obj)/output
>
> 	cleandocs:
> 		$(Q)rm -rf $(BUILDDIR)
>
>
> This should (at least?!) be:
>
> 	BUILDDIR      = ./$(obj)/output
> or:
> 	$(Q)rm -rf ./$(BUILDDIR)

These would break builds for a lot of people and are not the right
solution.

Thanks for the report,

jon

Re: make cleandocs issue: rm -rf /output when obj not defined

[Randy Dunlap]

On 7/25/21 1:11 PM, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> pioneer695 <pioneer695@protonmail.com> writes:
> 
>> In an attempt to get some readable documentation I cloned the git repository
>> to check how the PDF format is.
>>
>> Entered Documentation and proceeded with:
>>
>> 	make pdfdocs

Hi,
I'm curious about this part above. Are you saying that you did:

cd Documentation
make pdfdocs

I've never tried that and don't expect it to be done that way.

I do (from the top of the kernel source tree):

make pdfdocs
or
make htmldocs

with no problems, other than I may not have all of the latex
tools installed.

>> which failed, so to start fresh, my thought was that:
>>
>> 	make cleandocs
>>
>> would be the next step before anything else. But, this resulted in:
>>
>> 	rm -rf /output
> 
> That's not good...
> 
>> as $(obj) for some reason was empty.
> 
> *This* would appear to be the real problem.  If you could do some
> digging to figure out why that happened, I suspect that would be
> useful. 
> 
>> Makefile for Documentation has:
>>
>> 	BUILDDIR      = $(obj)/output
>>
>> 	cleandocs:
>> 		$(Q)rm -rf $(BUILDDIR)
>>
>>
>> This should (at least?!) be:
>>
>> 	BUILDDIR      = ./$(obj)/output
>> or:
>> 	$(Q)rm -rf ./$(BUILDDIR)
> 
> These would break builds for a lot of people and are not the right
> solution.


-- 
~Randy

Re: make cleandocs issue: rm -rf /output when obj not defined

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 01:53:30PM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> On 7/25/21 1:11 PM, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> > pioneer695 <pioneer695@protonmail.com> writes:
> > 
> >> In an attempt to get some readable documentation I cloned the git repository
> >> to check how the PDF format is.
> >>
> >> Entered Documentation and proceeded with:
> >>
> >> 	make pdfdocs
> 
> Hi,
> I'm curious about this part above. Are you saying that you did:
> 
> cd Documentation
> make pdfdocs
> 
> I've never tried that and don't expect it to be done that way.
> 
> I do (from the top of the kernel source tree):
> 
> make pdfdocs
> or
> make htmldocs
> 
> with no problems, other than I may not have all of the latex
> tools installed.

Perhaps we should rename Documentation/Makefile to Documentation/Kbuild
to prevent this confusion?

Re: make cleandocs issue: rm -rf /output when obj not defined

[pioneer695]

Hi,

Sorry for a rather delayed feedback. Got cut of due to various circumstances in real life. Added a comment below.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Sunday, July 25th, 2021 at 10:53 PM, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org> wrote:

> On 7/25/21 1:11 PM, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
>
> > pioneer695 pioneer695@protonmail.com writes:
> >
> > > In an attempt to get some readable documentation I cloned the git repository
> > >
> > > to check how the PDF format is.
> > >
> > > Entered Documentation and proceeded with:
> > >
> > > make pdfdocs
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm curious about this part above. Are you saying that you did:
>
> cd Documentation
>
> make pdfdocs
>
> I've never tried that and don't expect it to be done that way.
>
> I do (from the top of the kernel source tree):
>
> make pdfdocs
>
> or
>
> make htmldocs
>
> with no problems, other than I may not have all of the latex
>
> tools installed.
>

Yes. This is correct. After realizing my errors building from root gave no issues. I thought the Documentation was a separate make tree from the rest.

IF it could be an issue, beyond my stupidity, a simple README that say *build this from root* or similar should suffice in my opinion. I always look for README, COMPILING or the like (but that's me).

~pioneer695

> > > which failed, so to start fresh, my thought was that:
> > >
> > > make cleandocs
> > >
> > > would be the next step before anything else. But, this resulted in:
> > >
> > > rm -rf /output
> >
> > That's not good...
> >
> > > as $(obj) for some reason was empty.
> >
> > This would appear to be the real problem. If you could do some
> >
> > digging to figure out why that happened, I suspect that would be
> >
> > useful.
> >
> > > Makefile for Documentation has:
> > >
> > > BUILDDIR = $(obj)/output
> > >
> > > cleandocs:
> > >
> > > $(Q)rm -rf $(BUILDDIR)
> > >
> > > This should (at least?!) be:
> > >
> > > BUILDDIR = ./$(obj)/output
> > >
> > > or:
> > >
> > > $(Q)rm -rf ./$(BUILDDIR)
> >
> > These would break builds for a lot of people and are not the right
> >
> > solution.
>
> --
>
> ~Randy