Re: Makefile dependency generation for elisp files?

On Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 09:53:12, Stephen Turnbull wrote:

> No. elisp is designed to make this difficult and unreliable. > > It is possible to construct a graph of requires, but a require that > is not listed in the package Makefile REQUIRES variable will also be > reported as a fatal error when attempting to build. > > However, Lisp code that calls a function that is not defined at load > time or compile time is legal by design, so there is no way (except > to keep a database of all functions ever defined anywhere) to > determine whether a function that is called is a dependency, and if > so, it is not possible to determine where it was defined. > > Consider: > > (condition-case nil > (who-knows-if-i-am-defined--try-me-and-find-out!) > (error > (all-hail-rms))) > > Various people have tried to do a "good-enough" job over the years, > but with little success; it seems to be more trouble than it is > worth. Gosh, I was expecting such an answer ;-)