Re: Code coverage report for groff 1.24.0pre -- thanks, gnulib!

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:47:54 -0600

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.lib.gnulib.bugs,gmane.comp.printing.groff.general
Message-ID	<20260117184754.v53owjqsllmfnoae@illithid>

Hi Collin,

At 2026-01-17T10:39:05-0800, Collin Funk wrote:
> "G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> writes:
> > By happenstance I noticed the gnulib developers talking about how
> > they had a GNUMakefile target for generating code coverage reports
> > for you.
> >
> > In groff, we don't use GNUMakefiles--we try to use portable Make,
> > and have largely succeeded.  If *BSD makes have gotten current with
> > POSIX 2024, they may even be able to run these targets.  The most
> > exotic thing I see is the `?=` macro definition operator.
> 
> The 'maintainer-makefile' module doesn't depend on GNU Make for
> building programs. It copies a "maint.mk' file with the code coverage
> rules, among other checks to the repository along with "GNUMakefile".
> The "GNUMakefile" is relatively small and includes three files,
> "Makefile", "cfg.mk", and "maint.mk"; in that order.
> 
> The result is that using GNU Make you will have extra targets meant
> for maintainers. Users using another 'make' program will still be able
> to build the programs, without the targets meant for maintainers.

Right, but I want any interested person (potential groff developer) in
possession of a release archive (or a Git checkout) to be able to run
the targets.  It's up to them to satisfy maintainer-mode dependencies,
but I see no reason to erect further barriers to this sort of
investigation of the code.

I'm leaning toward adding a "tags" target as well, to run "ctags -R"
over relevant portions of the tree.  I've already been using "tags"
files to develop groff with Vim and my personal fork of "mg".  I see no
reason not to help others do the same.

> You can look at coreutils for an example. Though, I am not sure how
> well the module will work in projects using C++.

Yes, I have some trepidation about that as well.  :)

Regards,
Branden

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