netbsd-help: build just /usr/bin/iconv

Subject: build just /usr/bin/iconv
To: None <netbsd-help@NetBSD.org>
From: James K. Lowden <jklowden@schemamania.org>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 04/23/2005 20:27:27

I've never built the NetBSD userland. I'd like to know if there's any
liability to building just one tool (or library), for testing. 
I was going to send-pr a complaint about iconv(1). I think the following
error message is misleading:
	$ echo '' | iconv -f ucs-2le -t ascii
	iconv: iconv(): Invalid argument
You can spend quite awhile reading the iconv man page before you guess
that the "argument" in question belongs to neither -f nor -t, but the
input. 
iconv(3) should return EILSEQ in the above case, and I think the error
message should say so. 
Then I thought, I can be a boy scout and fix it, so I'm pulled
/usr/src/usr.bin from CVS. "cd src/usr.bin/iconv/ && make" works. 
Everything seems OK. 
My question is, do I have to build the whole thing first? I don't want
to, because I'd rather not check out the branch I'm using. I'd rather try
to build only /usr/bin/iconv from current sources on my netbsd-2-0-RELEASE
box. 
Many thanks for your advice. 
--jkl