[Python-Dev] packaging/bootstrap issue

[Fredrik Lundh]

Anthony Baxter wrote:

> This is from bug www.python.org/sf/1465408
>
> Because the Python.asdl and the generated Python-ast.[ch] get checked
> into svn in the same revision, the svn export I use to build the
> tarballs sets them all to the same timestamp on disk (the timestamp
> of the checkin). "make" then attempts to rebuild the ast files - this
> requires a python executable. Can you see the bootstrap problem?
>
> To "fix" this, I'm going to make the "welease" script that does the
> releases touch the ast files to set their timestamps newer than that
> of Python.asdl. It's not an ideal solution, but it should fix the
> problem. The other option would be some special Makefile magic that
> detects this case and doesn't rebuild the files if no "python" binary
> can be found. I have no idea how you'd do this in a portable way.

this is closely related to

    www.python.org/sf/1393109

except that in the latter case, the system have a perfectly working
Python 2.1 which chokes on the new-style constructs used in the
generator script.

fwiw, that bug report (from december) says

    iirc, various solutions to this were discussed on python-dev,
    but nobody seems to have done anything about it.

so it's about time someone did something about it...  explicitly touching
the files should be good enough.

</F>