On 12/13/2017 09:13 AM, Eric Blake wrote: Answering myself, >> It doesn't say anything about autoreconf.... I guessed that "configure" meant "autoconf", but I don't see how a user who hasn't already built that particular project should know to do "autoreconf". There are many configure/build tools available on the Internet, and just about every tool I have tried to download and build uses a different one. > > A lot of projects have a 'bootstrap' or 'autogen.sh' or other script > that runs both autoreconf AND other preparatory steps to get from the > git checkout to configure via a single command. But I'm not seeing an > obvious candidate for such a bootstrap script in git. Wouter? D'oh - I was looking in the wrong directory (I was confusing nbdkit.git with nbd.git; they are two separate projects). nbd.git, which is what you are trying to build, DOES have autogen.sh as its bootstrap script. So, for building from git, the FIRST thing you want to do is run: ./autogen.sh which runs 'autoreconf -i' and other goodness under the hood, and makes it so that you will get a working 'configure' file. > >> Rather clearer bulld instructions would really help. >> See https://github.com/rparkins999/sqliteman/tree/master/Sqliteman for an example of how I, at least, think a build instruction should look. >> Missing files in the git repository are often caused by a failure to do a git commit after creating the file for the first time, or if the files should get built, a failure to include the instructions to build them. > > Missing files in git is intentional - if it can be easily regenerated by > any developer following the normal developer's steps, then it doesn't > belong in git (it may belong in the tarball, though, as the tarball > should cater to a wider audience that is unlikely to have > autoconf/automake/other tools already installed). Yes, patches are still welcome to improve the README.md (and/or other) documentation on the additional step to take when building from .git instead of from a pre-built tarball. -- Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer Red Hat, Inc. +1-919-301-3266 Virtualization: qemu.org | libvirt.org
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