Question: rebuilding frontend tools after libpgfeutils.a changes?

Started by Chao Li5 days ago3 messages
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#1Chao Li
li.evan.chao@gmail.com

Hi,

While working on patch [1]/messages/by-id/0594CC79-1544-45DD-8AA4-26270DE777A7@gmail.com, I noticed that after modifying astreamer_lz4.c, running “make" only rebuilds libpgfeutils.a, but does not automatically rebuild the client tools that depend on it. This makes iterative development a bit inconvenient, as the tools need to be rebuilt manually.

I am wondering whether it would be worth updating the relevant Makefiles so that changes to libpgfeutils.a properly trigger rebuilds of dependent frontend binaries.

Since this would likely involve touching quite a few Makefiles, I’d prefer to check first whether committers think the effort is worthwhile before spending time on it. That’s the reason for this email.

[1]: /messages/by-id/0594CC79-1544-45DD-8AA4-26270DE777A7@gmail.com

Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/

#2Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Chao Li (#1)
Re: Question: rebuilding frontend tools after libpgfeutils.a changes?

Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com> writes:

I am wondering whether it would be worth updating the relevant Makefiles so that changes to libpgfeutils.a properly trigger rebuilds of dependent frontend binaries.

I'd vote no, because it would add a lot of usually-pointless cycles to
normal rebuild cases.

Now, I'm a guy who doesn't believe in --enable-depend either, so
your opinion might differ. But it would not be a free improvement.

regards, tom lane

#3Chao Li
li.evan.chao@gmail.com
In reply to: Tom Lane (#2)
Re: Question: rebuilding frontend tools after libpgfeutils.a changes?

On Mar 2, 2026, at 22:56, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com> writes:

I am wondering whether it would be worth updating the relevant Makefiles so that changes to libpgfeutils.a properly trigger rebuilds of dependent frontend binaries.

I'd vote no, because it would add a lot of usually-pointless cycles to
normal rebuild cases.

Now, I'm a guy who doesn't believe in --enable-depend either, so
your opinion might differ. But it would not be a free improvement.

regards, tom lane

Thanks for the guidance. I will not spend time on that then.

Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/