Generating file lists from a script

Generating file lists from a script

[Demi Marie Obenour]

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Maintaining the lists of files and directories in the makefiles
is error-prone.  Would it make sense to use a script to generate
them from the git repository?  The script would get it right
every time, whereas I tend to get it wrong more times than not.
-- 
Sincerely,
Demi Marie Obenour (she/her/hers)

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Re: Generating file lists from a script

[Alyssa Ross]

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Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:

> Maintaining the lists of files and directories in the makefiles
> is error-prone.  Would it make sense to use a script to generate
> them from the git repository?  The script would get it right
> every time, whereas I tend to get it wrong more times than not.

As long as we're still maintaining a list of files in the source tree,
rather than doing something like copying whole directories, and we don't
have to make the Makefiles less readable to accomodate the script, I
don't mind.

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Re: Generating file lists from a script

[Demi Marie Obenour]

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On 8/31/25 06:51, Alyssa Ross wrote:
> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Maintaining the lists of files and directories in the makefiles
>> is error-prone.  Would it make sense to use a script to generate
>> them from the git repository?  The script would get it right
>> every time, whereas I tend to get it wrong more times than not.
> 
> As long as we're still maintaining a list of files in the source tree,
> rather than doing something like copying whole directories, and we don't
> have to make the Makefiles less readable to accomodate the script, I
> don't mind.

Would this work?

1. Move all files meant to be included into the images into
   a subdirectory, say `image`.
2. Move the lists of files and symlinks (but not FIFOs and
   directories) into a separate file that is included by the
   main Makefile.
3. Write a script that uses `git ls-files` to generate that
   file.

I already wrote a script that is a bit over 100 lines of code.
Its only dependencies are awk, (bash OR zsh), sort, env, and
git.  I only tested it with GNU awk, GNU bash, and GNU sort,
but I expect that it should work with any awk supporting -E,
any env implementing -S, and any shell supporting -euo pipefail.

If storing the permissions of FIFOs and directories is desired,
it would be trivial to add them.
-- 
Sincerely,
Demi Marie Obenour (she/her/hers)

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