Re: Idea: Standard way to negate special targets

[David A. Wheeler]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 14:40:40 +0300, Michael Livshin <address@hidden> wrote:
> Or!
> How about a general syntax for canceling prerequisites (not just for
> special targets)?  Say, "!:" (inspired by "&:")?
> 
> Then you'd just say ".ONESHELL!: my-tricky-target".  More verbose than
> "my-tricky-target: ! .ONESHELL" or whatever,

I think the verbosity is a problem - it increases the risk of bugs & time to 
change things.
Every time you have to repeat a name you increase the chance
of *almost* repeating the name & having a mysterious bug.
It also means that reading the Makefile will take more time (and you have to
read a Makefile to review or edit it).

But the idea of generalizing it to cancel prerequisites in general, not just
special targets, is a good idea.  If you're going to have a capability, I think
it should avoid limitations where reasonable.  So I like that expansion.

I think the removal would happen at the first expansion, just like
any other rule.  So you could add & remove as desired, with the last one 
winning.
So you'd have to have a removal rule after all its adding rules.
That'd be easiest to implement & would be relatively unsurprising.


On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 09:43:26 -0400, Paul Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> The thing I don't like about this is it's not clear where the "!"
> applies.  Does it apply to just the next prereq?

That was my intent.

> What about modifying the target name itself, like:
> 
>   tricky_target: .!ONESHELL .PHONY ...

I think modifying the target name itself is MUCH worse.

I don't the problem is serious, but I *do* see your point.

I think a better alternative syntax would be to start with "!"
*without* a space after it.  For example:

tricky_target: !.ONESHELL .PHONY ...

There's some logic to it; the prerequisites are space-separated,
and now they're still space-separated including the "not a prerequisite"
statement.

That would create pain for filenames that begin with "!", but
prefixing them with "./" would resolve that problem,
and make already limits filenames.

--- David A. Wheeler