A new target, "check", has been added to Makefile for 2.6.  It runs some
tests on the source code that are intended to check there's nothing
wrong before preparing a patch. 
http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Makefile.pre.in?rev=61528&view=markup

Unfortunately, GNU coding standards have cemented in many people's minds
that "check" is the target for self-tests, e.g. "make clean all check
install".  http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Standard-Targets

I realise Python doesn't fall under those coding standards, but none the
less it is confusing to people to re-use a standard target name for a
different use.  In the past, Python had no "check" target so people
spotted their mistake, investigated, and found the "test" target.

Please consider renaming this new "check" target, e.g. to "prepatch", to
avoid this confusion when 2.6 is released.  Perhaps a "check" target can
be added as a synonym for "test" at the same time?

Brett, how about "patchcheck"?

On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 7:17 AM, Benjamin Peterson
<report@bugs.python.org> wrote:
>
> Benjamin Peterson <musiccomposition@gmail.com> added the comment:
>
> Brett, how about "patchcheck"?
>

Maybe. I will see if any inspiration comes to me in the near future.
Obviously there is no rush to get this into any specific RC.

Or how about ``make precommit``?

That suggests that it only need to run by committers. I find it useful,
just for the reindenting whenever I'm writing a patch.

OK, I am going to go with ``make patchcheck`` since that is the script's
name and the command does nothing but execute the script.

I will wait until after rc1 to deal with this.

The attached patch renames the target to patchcheck.

Patch looks fine to me.

On the trunk with r66237 and 3.0 with r66238.

The patchcheck target isn't in .PHONY at the end of the file.

2.7 through r66819, 2.6 through r66820, and 3.0 through r66821.