hardcoded -C argument to ${INSTALL}

Bruce Evans bde at zeta.org.au
Tue May 6 15:50:17 PDT 2003


On Tue, 6 May 2003, Lars Eggert wrote:

> I'm putting a script together that will remove stale pieces after an
> installworld, and my find+mtime approach chokes, because some uses of
> ${INSTALL} in the Makefiles hardcode the -C argument, which will cause
> file modification times to not be updated if the files are identical.
>
> For example:
> 	include/Makefile
> 	share/mk/bsd.incs.mk
> 	sys/boot/efi/loader/Makefile
> 	sys/boot/alpha/common/Makefile.common
> 	...
>
> I'm no guru on the buildworld process, so I'm wondering whether this is
> by design, or an oversight? Can the -C be removed without ill effects?

-C is important for includes because it prevents most executables
(including freshly built ones) becoming out of date every time you
install includes.

-C is used for very important executables like ld-elf.so.1 for its side
effect of giving an atomic-as-possible install.  Atomic-as-possible
installs should be the default, and install(1) has made some progress
towards this, but it is not there yet -- by default, it still begins
with unlinking the target.

Bruce


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