[m-users.] [mercury-users] .mh files

[Mark Brown]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 8:49 PM Volker Wysk <post at volker-wysk.de> wrote:
>
> Am Mittwoch, dem 24.07.2024 um 12:09 +0200 schrieb Zoltan Somogyi:
> >
> > On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:53:00 +0200, Volker Wysk <post at volker-wysk.de> wrote:
> > Some users of mmc --make *do* need .err files. One reason I mentioned above.
> > Another is that some people use automatic error-message-processing programs
> > such as extras/error.
>
> In this case, I would prefer a command line option that triggers the
> creation (or retention) of the .err files. Or, they also could be placed in
> the "Mercury" directory, like Peter has suggested. That seems to be the best
> option to me.

Error files also need to be readily discoverable by people who aren't
used to Mercury's build system. Depending on how a project builds,
error messages to the output stream may quickly scroll out of sight,
so if the error files are also out of sight then some users may not
know the error messages even exist. My recollection is that this was
the reason for not putting .err files in subdirs in the first place.

Personally, I find it pretty annoying to have to hunt around to find
where a system I'm unfamiliar with stores its errors or logs. I think
it would be a poor choice of default behaviour.

Mark