Re: Missing feature

[Ted Stern]

On 17 Jun 2005 at 17:06 UTC-0700, Jason Wessel wrote:
> Attached is a patch against the latest CVS to add the function
> updatecache.
>
> Attached is also an example of a batching compiler script.
>
> The idea here is to use a rule to collect a series of files together
> in a variable and pass them all to the compiler at once.

I do something like this when building a library.  There is an
additional complication for me in that a list of 10K objects in a
directory hierarchy exceeds the character length that can be passed to
a shell command.  So I use a recursive gmake function to build a file
containing each item in the list on a separate line, then I use the
~10K line file as input for the command using the unix command
'xargs'.  See the man page for that function for more details on
usage.

I'm attaching my MAKE_LONG_LIST function below.  Use it in a target
rule, e.g., as follows:

LISTFILE := yourtarget.list

yourtarget: $(the_very_long_list)
      $(call MAKE_LONG_LIST,$(LISTFILE),$(the_very_long_list))
      xargs $(YOURCOMMAND) $@ < $(LISTFILE)

>
> I ran into the problem that the standard make 3.80 was not able to
> update the time stamps of targets that did not have a direct
> dependency of a rule.  I would like to get this feature added to gnu
> make or learn of another way to do the same thing if it is possible
> another way.

What you want to do is slightly different.

Try chaining the dependencies a little.  Your dummy target will be
built first.  When it comes time to run the .o rules, those files will
already be updated and their rules won't be run.

    SRCS := a.cc b.cc c.cc
    OBJS := $(SRCS:.cc=.o)

    .PHONY: dummy

    dummy: $(SRCS)
          $(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $^

    $(OBJS): dummy.foo

Ted
-- 
 Ted Stern                                 Applications Group
 Cray Inc.                               office: 206-701-2182
 411 First Avenue South, Suite 600         cell: 206-383-1049
 Seattle, WA 98104-2860                     FAX: 206-701-2500

 Frango ut patefaciam -- I break so that I may reveal
 (The Paleontological Society motto, equally apropos for debugging)

#
# MAKE_LONG_LIST:
#
# MAKE function to be called when a long variable list needs to be
# put into a file with one item on each line.
# Two arguments:
# $(1) = list name
# $(2) = MAKE variable to put into list
#
# The resulting list can be used in combination with xargs to get
# around shell command-line character-length restrictions.
#
# The current hack is encapsulated in a separate included Makefile
# to hide the confusing recursive function.
#
# RECURSIVE version is requires GNU make-3.80 or higher, but is shorter and
# will handle any size list.
#

# CALC:
# Math helper function -- Use shell to do simple operations.
# Relies on ksh/bash $(( )) syntax.
# If you don't like this or need something more portable, change to
# CALC = $(shell echo "$(1)" | bc)
CALC = $(shell echo $$(($(1))))

nextindx = $(call CALC,$(3)+1)
nextword = $(word $(nextindx),$(2))
nextlist = $(wordlist $(nextindx),$(words $(2)),$(2))

# ADD_TO_LIST:
# A recursive function definition to handle iteration
# ARG 1 = filename to contain list, one entry per line
# ARG 2 = variable containing a very long list
# ARG 3 = Increment
define ADD_TO_LIST
        @printf "%s\n" $(wordlist 1,$(3),$(2)) >> $(1)
        $(if $(nextword),$(call ADD_TO_LIST,$(1),$(nextlist),$(3)),@echo)
endef

# Actual MAKE_LONG_LIST definition is a wrapper around the recursive call.
# Note that the list file is first cleared out using Bourne/ksh/bash syntax.
# I just arbitrarily set the iteration size to 500, but you can make it
# smaller if the system environment length is still too large.
define MAKE_LONG_LIST
        : > $(1)
        $(call ADD_TO_LIST,$(1),$(2),500)
endef