2.5.44 mrproper removes editor backup files
Quoted 7 lines · Sam Ravnborg
Quoted 3 lines · Mikael Pettersson
Contrary to years of history and several explicit comments in
Makefilethat mrproper != distclean, 2.5.44 merged the two which causes mrproper to incorrectly remove editor backup files.Why do you need three levels of cleaning?
In other words what is it that make clean failed to clean in your case.
I only use mrproper myself. Always have. Over the years I've seen too many build failures for others caused by insufficient cleaning to really trust plain clean.
Quoted 5 lines
I know that we always used to say: make mrproper can cure everything. But make clean starts to get the power of make mrproper.
It makes sense to kill one of them, but make help needs an update though. You could argue if distclean=mrproper or mrproper=clean.
Changing the behaviour of mrproper is like $EDITOR suddenly changing its core key bindings. Users accustomed to those bindings won't be happy.
If, for whatever reason, clean becomes as powerful as mrproper, just set mrproper == clean. Or remove clean but keep mrproper :-)
/Mikael