make show VALUE=VAR depends on ghc-stage1

I'm trying to debug some issues in GHC build system and its pretty annoying when I change some variable value in mk/config.mk and when I try to verify this by

make show VALUE=<var name>

it starts a build of ghc-stage1 compiler. Is that really needed? IMHO this looks like a bug as after running configure all variables in makefiles should be constant...

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	7.7
Type	Bug
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	normal
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Build System
Test case
Differential revisions
BlockedBy
Related
Blocking
CC
Operating system
Architecture

changed weight to 5

added Tbug Trac import labels

closed

The problem is that some makefiles are generated during the build: We make makefiles for the dependencies between modules, and we use ghc-cabal to make the package-data.mk makefiles. This is necessarily interleaved with compilation, as e.g. we need to build ghc-cabal before we can use it to generate makefiles, and we need to make the stage1 compiler before we can use it to calculate dependencies, so I don't think that it makes sense to move all this stuff into configure.

However, it should be rare that you want to alter mk/config.mk; normally you should define values in mk/build.mk (or `mk/validate.mk if validating) instead.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Resolution	Unresolved → ResolvedWon'tFix

reopened

changed milestone to %7.8.1

I think this is a real bug and we should fix it.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Resolution	ResolvedWon'tFix → Unresolved

assigned to @trac-thoughtpolice

changed milestone to %7.10.1

Moving to 7.10.1

removed milestone

Moving to 7.12.1 milestone; if you feel this is an error and should be addressed sooner, please move it back to the 7.10.1 milestone.

assigned to @trac-thomie and unassigned @trac-thoughtpolice

I have a patch that adds a make show! command. From the commit message:

A normal make show starts a build of the ghc-stage1 compiler, to

create package-data.mk files. This version doesn't read those, so it

will work right after ./configure.

Does that sound reasonable to add?

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Differential revisions	- → D1064

mentioned in commit ec197d39

closed

I added documentation to Building/Modifying as well as to make help.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Resolution	Unresolved → ResolvedFixed

changed milestone to %8.0.1

Milestone renamed