Re: GNU Make 3.79.1 Bug-Report?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 21:47:21 -0500
> From: "Paul D. Smith" <address@hidden>
> 
> In Windows and DOS, the COMMAND.COM works differently in that the
> current working directory value is global, to some extent, so any change
> to it, in any process, effects future processes.

Actually, it's not up to COMMAND.COM to cause this.  On Windows, the
working directory is global to all processes in a given ``session'',
so any change of the cwd by any process running in the session affects
all the other processes in that session.

> Finally, note that what you are doing above would be written in a
> standard makefile as:
> 
>   all:
>         cd test; dir > content.txt

This will work only if the shell invoked to run such commands
supports multiple commands in a single command line.  COMMAND.COM
that comes with Windows 9x, which is the case in point, does not.
(The DJGPP port of Make does support this by using the internal
emulator of COMMAND.COM implemented in the C library's `system'
function that interprets special characters such as `;' and `>', but
the MinGW port probably uses the Microsoft runtime, so it can't.)