Hello,

> On Jan 9, 2017, at 09:23, Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 5:23 AM, Assaf Gordon <assafgordon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The attach suggested patch adds all three cases to 'configure.ac',
>> and 'doc/sed.1' is build conditionally.
> 
> Not sure it's worth it, but adding an "else" block to that "if
> BUILD_MAN_PAGE" (with a rule that fails with a diagnostic explaining
> why we cannot build sed.1) may avoid some confusion. Otherwise, all
> they'll get is a failed build (no rule to make...), and may think it's
> a bug and report it.

I think that n the case of building from tarball - it won't fail because 'doc/sed.1' already exists.
But in the other cases there will be an clear failure.

The attach patch handles these cases specifically, and creates a dummy man page instead of failing.

What do you think ?

- assaf