Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 330701
Autotools plugin will silently delete the project directory if an empty build directory is supplied
Last modified: 2008-04-04 16:50:37 EDT
Description of problem: Autotools plugin will silently delete the project directory if an empty build directory is supplied in the project settings. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): autotools-0.9.5, cdt-4.0.1, eclipse-3.4M2 How reproducible: The delete is not always immediate but it's a matter of time until it happens. Steps to Reproduce: 1. In an autotools project settings, change the build directory from "build" to empty ("") 2. Change some other settings, clean the project, etc. to force a autotools to clean the build. 3. Build the project. Actual results: The whole project directory is erased, and a message dialog about missing files appears. Expected results: Either: a) a simple "make distclean" instead of deleting b) an empty build directory should not be accepted. I personally prefer a). Spite all the evil of building in the source directory, is not an uncommon practice, so there should be a minimal support of autotools plugin for it. At any rate, autotools plugin should not ever erase a directory that it didn't create without the user's consent.
Working on a patch to add Autotools properties that will include by default option a) above and will allow a user to manually specify that the build directory is deleted on clean or specify an alternate make target (e.g. clean).
Excellent! Keep up the good work!
Patch is available on the Sourceware eclipse update site: 0.9.5.1. Please try it out. There is a new project property tab added to Project -> Properties -> C/C++ Build -> Settings for Autotools options. One of the added options is make clean behavior. By default, make clean will be performed via a make target, the default target being: distclean. One is given the choice of opting to use the Managed Build "delete the build directory" method instead or choosing an alternate make target. I performed a test whereby I added a test.file to the top-level build directory and did a clean - the file was left untouched. One quirk however; the low-level ManagedBuild mechanism insists on running a clean as part of the build so a Clean and Build operation results in a make distclean followed by a make distclean; make all. The 2nd make distclean attempt has no makefile to work with so reports this in a brief message. The make all following this ends up regenerating everything and works as expected.
Sorry for the delay testing this. Really busy lately. I still get the project directory deletion with 0.9.5.1, even when "distclean" option is selected. It takes some time, and change other configure options and doing clean, build, etc. But it still occurs. I'm going to investigate a bit further (whether there is something wrong with my setup, whether it only happens on existing projects or also in new, etc.) and then let you know.
Based on the date this bug was created, it appears to have been reported during the development of Fedora 8. In order to refocus our efforts as a project we are changing the version of this bug to '8'. If this bug still exists in rawhide, please change the version back to rawhide. (If you're unable to change the bug's version, add a comment to the bug and someone will change it for you.) Thanks for your help and we apologize for the interruption. The process we're following is outlined here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/F9CleanUp We will be following the process here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping to ensure this doesn't happen again.
Closing. A new bug 412651 was opened about the new remove option not working. A fix has already been made.