regenerating dependent files on checkin [was Re: Huh?]

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < rzqr9vvl7qp.fsf@djlvig.dl.ac.uk >you write:
  > >>>>> "Joe" == Joe Buck <jbuck@synopsys.com> writes:
  > 
  >  Joe> It has been a frequent occurrence that snapshots or even releases
  >  Joe> have out-of-date derived files (outputs of bison or makeinfo).
  > 
  > I've fallen for this several times checking in others' patches,
  > especially where there isn't an appropriate make rule to regenerate
  > things.
  > 
  > Is there some way we can ensure regeneration of such files when their
  > sources are checked in to the remote repository?  (There isn't
  > AFAICT.)
Nothing really good.  The schemes we're using for the web pages are rather
fragile.

In some cases (the parser files) we want to slowly move away from having
generated files in the repo.  I doubt we'll ever get that far with the
configure scripts unless autoconf's install base grows by  a couple orders
of magnitude.

jeff