Re: extending automake

[Brian Dessent]

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> This thread has some ideas:
> <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.general/8916/focus=8924>
> 
> If you (or anybody) finds the above useful, and think the setup is
> general enough for several use cases, we can think about how to
> integrate it into Automake proper.  Of course, if anyone volunteers
> to work on this, be my guest!  ;-)

The MULTITARGETS and foo_{TARGETS,SOURCES,COMMAND} syntax that you came
up with is certainly in line with the Automake way of doing things, but
the observation that writing a MULTITARGET rule looks nothing like a
normal rule is valid I think.  And ideally you shouldn't have to worry
about the stamp or lock names at all, they are implementation details.

I know this will sound a little crazy, but what about simply an
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS/AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE keyword that says "whenever I write a
rule with more than one target, assume I want the 'one program, multiple
outputs' semantics and not the traditional make semantics."  Automake
would transparently handle coming up with lock and stamp names and
adding them to a 'clean' target, as well as emitting all the boring lock
stuff around the recipe.  This is a DWIM kind of idea, since I have the
sense that people do in fact write such rules with the expectation of
"one program, multiple outputs" semantics.  And it would of course
default to off so that there's no worry of it regressing anything
existing; and it can be enabled per-file via AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.

Brian