CreateProcess FAILS WHEN INCLUDING MAKE FILES ON WIN32 Platform

[Svend Kristian Lindholm]

Platform versions:

Windows NT Diagnostics :
Version 4.0 (Build 1381: Service Pack 5)

make --version :

Y:\>Y:\unxutils\usr\local\wbin\make.exe --version    
GNU Make version 3.78.1, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
Built for Windows32
Copyright (C) 1988, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99
        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Report bugs to <address@hidden>.


*********************************************************

Ok - that was the formal part - now to the bug description
When invoking GNUmake the following is written to stderr:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
process_begin: CreateProcess(D:\TEMP\make2522.bat,
D:\TEMP\make2522.bat,...) failed.
make (e=87): The parameter is incorrect.
Y:\unxutils\usr\local\wbin\make.exe: ***
[bluetooth/Common/general/event_process.d] Error 87

OR

process_begin: CreateProcess(D:\TEMP\make2292.bat,
D:\TEMP\make2292.bat,...) failed.
make (e=234): More data is available.
Y:\unxutils\usr\local\wbin\make.exe: *** [bluetooth/Board/drv/vega.d]
Error 234

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At first glance this seems to indicate a problem with the CreateProcess
API function.

However, I suspect the root cause to be something else. The error is
produced in the following way:

During dependency generation I include 11 make files (the "include
$(MKFILES)" directive )
in the main make file and this works fine. If I increase the number of
included make files
to 12 or more - no matter which make file  - I get the above error.

Attached to this mail you wil find an example gzipped tar-archive that
produces the first error described in the output (i.e. the (e=87))

0) Untar the attached tar-archive : tar xfvz mkbug.tgz - this will
produce a mkbug/ directory with subdirs.

1) In the mkbug/ directory run "make -f bug.mak"  to see the above error
produced
   (12 make files included in bug.mak)

2) In the mkbug/ directory run "make -f ok.mak" to see that make is
successful
   (11 make files included in ok.mak)

I've tested this on make-3.77 as well with exactly the same results.

I have also testet this dependency generation (with 16 make files) on
the GNU/Linux platform and this works fine :-) No Problem!

This leads me to deduce that the root cause to this error is a bug in
GNUmake on the WIN32 platform.

Hint on bug solution:

If one takes a look at the make databases (using -p)  that 1) and 2)
yields it can be noticed
that the "# Directories" parts differ significantly from each other.


Best regards/Med venlig hilsen
                  
Svend Kristian Lindholm
SW Development, M.Sc.E.E.
mailto:address@hidden

mkbug.tgz
Description: application/compressed