make -q and phony targets

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Paul Eggert discovered that phony targets cause "make -q" to fail.

How to reproduce:
======================== Makefile ========================
all : sanity foo

sanity :
        @test `expr 1 + 1` = 2

foo :
        echo > foo

.PHONY: sanity
==========================================================

$ make --version | head -n 1
GNU Make 3.82
$ make
echo > foo
$ make
$ echo $?
0
$ make -q
$ echo $?
1

More details what's going on:

$ make -q -d
...
 No implicit rule found for `all'.
  Considering target file `sanity'.
   File `sanity' does not exist.
   Finished prerequisites of target file `sanity'.
  Must remake target `sanity'.
Invoking recipe from Makefile:4 to update target `sanity'.
  Target file `sanity' needs remade under -q.
 Finished prerequisites of target file `all'.
Giving up on target file `all'.

It fails because "Target file `sanity' needs remade under -q".

But I told 'make' already through the .PHONY target that the 'sanity' target
has nothing to do with the file system and serves only the purpose to give
some structure to the Makefile.

Please, can you change the way '.PHONY' targets are considered for "make -q"?

Or, if not, Paul Eggert's suggestion [1] is to invent a new special built-in
target for this purpose.

Bruno

PS: Please let me know if I should have written into the bug tracker instead
    of to the mailing list.

[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2011-08/msg00107.html
-- 
In memoriam Paul Richter <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Richter_(Pfarrer)>