`make clean` fails with `/bin/sh: Argument list too long`

[samsa1]

Under certain conditions make clean fails on line

ocaml/Makefile.dev

Lines 47 to 48 in 25265d7

	partialclean::
	@rm -f $(AST_FILES)

With the error message make: /bin/sh: Argument list too long.

I tracked it back to those lines

ocaml/Makefile.dev

Lines 20 to 22 in 25265d7

	SOURCE_FILES=$(shell git ls-files '*.ml' '*.mli' | grep -v boot/menhir/parser)
	AST_FILES=$(addsuffix .ast,$(SOURCE_FILES))

that select too many values for bash.

The main culprit here is my version control system (https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj) which is not git but retrocompatible with it. When I have a conflict in my versions the command git ls-files '*.ml' '*.mli' returns 3 times more files (once for each prefix : .jjconflict-base-0, .jjconflict-side-0 and .jjconflict-side-1). This massive increase in number of files and total length of the names resulting in the error presented above.

[samsa1]

I managed to do a rapid fix on my side by replacing line 48 by

	@git ls-files '*.ml' '*.mli' | grep -v boot/menhir/parser | xargs addsuffix .ast, | xargs rm -f

[gasche]

@for f in $(AST_FILES); do rm -f '$$f'; done should be enough, and you could send a PR with that.

[gasche]

(With a comment that points to this issue, so that people don't rewrite it into rm -f $(AST_FILES) on the way back.)

[samsa1]

The for loop raises the same issue on my end

[gasche]

Urgh. The issue with the xargs version is that I'm worried it is less portable to other systems.

[nojb]

What about git clean -f '*.ast'?

[gasche]

I proposed a different workaround in #13818 which is just to unplug the .ast stuff from partialclean::, to avoid any robustness or portability issue around this. I think that this is preferable to operating on arbitrary non-versioned files in the way that you suggest -- and it works better in situations where the .ast files are in staged in the index, as suggested in HACKING.adoc.