680542 - GLOBAL_DEPS -vs- rules.mk

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Joey Armstrong [:joey]]

This bug is a placeholder to revisit later.

GLOBAL_DEPS += can be used as an explicit list of dependencies that can force a rebuild when files change (Makefile, Makefile.ini, autoconf.mk, etc).

How should rules.mk and other core files beneath config/, js/src/config/ be handled - should they be included as dependencies ?  Including makefile deps will help trigger a full rebuild when needed.  There would also be a side effect of triggering a full rebuild for unrelated/cosmetic changes [makefile comments].  Extra rebuilds may impact build system thruput for dependency builds.


Before considering the addition rules.mk will need to be split into separate makefiles based on function so finer grain dependencies can be added rather than rebuilding everything all the time.

Other options:
  o wrapper the dependency assignment with a conditional so it could be triggered on demand.
  o designate a different file in the sandbox (.sentinel/full_rebuild?) to have this special rebuild attribute.  When needed users can checkin a modified copy of the sentinel file and submit that along with rules.mk to include extra deps and force a rebuild.