what is the point of bfd/doc/ header generation rules

[Alan Modra]

On Thu, Dec 02, 2021 at 11:44:37AM -0500, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On 02 Dec 2021 17:39, Alan Modra via Binutils wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 01, 2021 at 11:57:10PM -0500, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > > bfd/doc/ has a few curious files that i can't seem to find docs on or any
> > > references to.  are they just uncommon maintainer-esque rules ?  or are
> > > they obsolete things that i can delete ?
> > > 
> > > specifically, what is the point of:
> > > $ cd bfd/doc/
> > > $ make libbfd.h libcoff.h bfd.h
> > 
> > See the headers rule in bfd/Makefile.am.  The above files are made in
> > bfd/doc when regenerating bfd/libbfd.h, bfd/libcoff.h, and
> > bfd/bfd-in2.h.
> 
> ok, but why is it in the doc/ dir to begin with ?

It's ancient history.  I suppose because some of the doc files are
generated from C files, as are parts of these headers.

>  doesn't it make more
> sense to move all of those rules/logic to the top-level Makefile.am ?

If your goal is to remove doc/Makefile then yes, that would make
sense.  Otherwise I don't see much benefit.

-- 
Alan Modra
Australia Development Lab, IBM