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

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Sat, 17 Jan 2026 13:28:40 -0600

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.lib.gnulib.bugs,gmane.comp.printing.groff.general
Message-ID	<20260117192840.ilzrsllsnoktpk4k@illithid>

Hi Collin,

At 2026-01-17T11:18:13-0800, Collin Funk wrote:
> Fair enough. Though "maint.mk" mostly just uses Perl, Awk, Sed, etc.
> Things that will be installed on any machine by default besides maybe
> containers, but those are certainly at least transitive dependencies
> of groff.
> 
> There are a few rules that use other programs, e.g. "codespell", but
> we check for those and skip them if they do not exist.

In this case I was thinking of "lcov" and "genhtml", which the coverage
targets require.

And "genhtml", wow.  Holy name space squat, Batman!  "lcov" also seized
"gendesc", "geninfo", and "genpng".  I am impressed by the audacity.

Nobody else has any business "gen"ing HTML, PNG images, or GNU Info for
any other purpose!

> "G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> writes:
> > 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.
> 
> Oh, I am so used to Automake making those rules for me. Does 'make
> TAGS' not work in groff for some reason?

Nope.

$ make -C build TAGS
make: Entering directory '/home/branden/src/GIT/groff/build'
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/branden/src/GIT/groff/build'
make[1]: *** No rule to make target 'src/utils/pfbtops/dummy.cpp', needed by 'tags-am'.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/branden/src/GIT/groff/build'
make: *** [Makefile:13257: tags-recursive] Error 1
make: Leaving directory '/home/branden/src/GIT/groff/build'

Is seems like there is _some_ sort of infrastructure there; I didn't ask
for no "tags-am" prerequisite.  Is this a bug?

> Copying some text from the Automake documentation [1]:
> 
>     All files listed using the _SOURCES, _HEADERS, and _LISP primaries
>     will be used to generate tags. Generated source files that are not
>     distributed must be declared in variables like
>     nodist_noinst_HEADERS or nodist_prog_SOURCES or they will be
>     ignored.
> 
> I would check groff for myself, but I never learned how to use ctags.

I am incredibly old.

I never got really practiced with cscope, but knew enough to bust it out
and to apply in an emergency.

> I like GNU global. :)

You're the first person I've heard mention it beyond GNU release
announcements, which I generally file away for later investigation and
then never get around to.  Give me the elevator pitch, as it applies to
you.  :)

Regards,
Branden

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