Re: 'withfile' function implementation

[Tim Murphy]

I think that looks ok.

There might be some question about how the variable "$(FILE)" would
look if you tried to iterate over its contents. e.g. would one see an
iteration for each word and with "\n"s  marking lines or is each line
an "atom" for want of a better word.

Regards,

Tim

2012/1/16 Paul Smith <address@hidden>:
> On Thu, 2011-12-15 at 15:13 -0800, Lawrence Ibarria wrote:
>> This is a rather simple path that implements a very simplified version
>> of what Tim suggested in his message of Sept 25th
>> (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-make/2011-09/msg00044.html ).
>>
>> Paul, what do you think? I’d rather not try to do everything, just
>> focus on one thing. I am not sure how much safety checks play a role
>> inside make.
>
> I was looking at this (and https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?35147)
>
> I'm still not in love with it.  I have the following concerns:
>
>     1. I still think the "a", "w" mode thing is clunky.
>     2. Unclear what to do about newlines.  The code doesn't add any but
>        getting a newline into a make variable is tricky.
>     3. The suggested patch is really only about 20% of the work: we
>        also need documentation, regression tests, etc.  Although I
>        guess doing this before the interface is locked down makes extra
>        work (but not for me! :-)).
>
> Here's an alternative suggestion, modeled more on the shell's file
> redirection rather than the C runtime's stdio:
>
> One new function, named "file" (?).  The function takes one or two
> arguments.
>
> The first argument is a filename, preceded by a token that specifies how
> the file is to be treated, with optional whitespace between them.  The
> tokens are:
>
> '>' : open the file with mode "w" (truncate) and write the second
> argument to the file, plus a newline.  If no second argument is given,
> nothing is written (the file will be empty).  The expansion of the
> function is the empty string.
>
> '>>' : Open the file with mode "a" (append) and write the second
> argument to the file, plus a newline.  If no second argument is given,
> nothing is written (if the file didn't exist it will be created but
> empty; if the file did exist it will be unchanged).  The expansion of
> the function is the empty string.
>
> '<' : Open the file with mode "r" and expand to the full contents of the
> file.  No conversion is done (the resulting text may have embedded
> newlines).  Use $(strip ...) to remove them if desired.
>
>
> So, some examples might be:
>
>        $(file >t.out,this is the first line)
>        $(file >>t.out,this is the second line)
>        $(file >> t.out,this is the third line)
>        FILE := $(file < t.out)
>
> Do people think this would be useable?
>
> I thought about defining three functions ">", ">>", and "<", rather than
> "file", but this would require a space between the "function name" and
> the file name; if you forgot the space (as you can do in the shell) then
> make would be looking to expand a variable/function named ">t.out"
> rather than the function ">" with the first argument of "t.out".  I just
> wonder if it would create more issues than it's worth to be cute like
> that.  Still, it's an option.
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
>  http://www.gnu.org                      http://make.mad-scientist.net
>  "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
>



-- 
You could help some brave and decent people to have access to
uncensored news by making a donation at:

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/friends/