document the distfiles business

1 files changed, 30 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Etc/zsh-development-guide b/Etc/zsh-development-guide
index 299fd0a18..793e2d255 100644
--- a/Etc/zsh-development-guide
+++ b/Etc/zsh-development-guide
@@ -826,3 +826,33 @@ x_*                   reserved for private experimental use
 zsh                   The Zsh Development Group (contact: <coordinator@zsh.org>)
 
 Below the top level, naming authority is delegated.
+
+
+Distribution of files
+---------------------
+
+zsh is distributed in two parts: a "src" distribution containing all
+the source files (roughly, but not exactly, corresponding to the CVS
+tree), and a "doc" distribution containing some pre-built files from
+the documentation directory.  All the files in the "doc" distribution
+may be generated from files in the "src" distribution with appropriate
+freely available tools.
+
+To indicate which files should be distributed, each directory in the CVS
+tree includes a file .distfiles that sets any number of a set of Bourne
+shell (scalar) parameters.  The value of the parameter is expanded as a
+set of standard command line arguments.  Basic globbing is allowed in the
+values.
+
+The following parameters are currently used:
+
+- DISTFILES_SRC is a list of files from the directory for the "src"
+  distribution.
+
+- DISTFILES_DOC is a list of files from the directory for the "doc"
+  distribution.
+
+- DISTFILES_NOT is a list of files that will not be included in a
+  distribution, but that need to be present in the CVS tree.  This
+  variable is not used by the zsh build process and is present for
+  the convenience of external checks.