Re: [PATCH 4/5] kbuild: make clean improved

[Tom Rini <trini@kernel.crashing.org>]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 11:19:40PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 09:50:34PM +0100, Russell King wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 10:46:55PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > >  # Directories & files removed with 'make clean'
> > >  CLEAN_DIRS  += $(MODVERDIR)
> > > -CLEAN_FILES +=	vmlinux System.map \
> > > +CLEAN_FILES +=	vmlinux System.map .version .config.old \
> > >                  .tmp_kallsyms* .tmp_version .tmp_vmlinux*
> > 
> > Why should 'make clean' remove the build version?  Traditionally,
> > this has been preserved until 'make mrproper'.
> 
> In the 2.4 days people had to do 'make clean' very often.
> For the 2.6 kernel this is no longer needed, so when cleaning up
> we want to be effective.
> 
> .version only really pays off when doing a lot of consecutive
> build on the _same_ kernel src.
> 
> And make clean is often used in combination with kernel patching,
> especially when renaming files: mv mm/slab.c.old mm/slab.c for example.
> 
> Here we start over with some new src, so it make sense to start over
> with the version?

I'd agrue the exact opposite.  If you're starting from scratch (new
patchset, etc, where you might do something like mv mm/slab.c.old
mm/slab.c) use 'distclean' or 'mrproper'.  If you just want to do a
'make clean' because you can't be sure you trust the build system to get
things right, you don't want the version being reset.

-- 
Tom Rini
http://gate.crashing.org/~trini/