Re: Feature request / patch: dependency-only prerequisites

[Christof Warlich]

on 05.07.19 at 23:44 Martin Dorey wrote:

... Sadly, though, adding all these things to the dependency list won't really help me.  We installed this system just three days ago, yet the mtime on stdio.h is months ago: 

devadmin@ch-ep1-3:~$ ls -l /usr/include/stdio.h

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31494 Feb  6 21:17 /usr/include/stdio.h

devadmin@ch-ep1-3:~$

That dates from when upstream built the package that included it:

https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/g/glibc/glibc_2.24-11+deb9u4_changelog

Yes, that's unfortunate, and the only generic fix would be checksum-based dependencies. Decent SCMs like git are also quite helpful in tackling this issue, see https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#Why_isn.27t_Git_preserving_modification_time_on_files.3F

If you decide to press on, then I have three minor suggestions:

> the newly introduced GNU Make’s $(filter ) function

The revision history for make.texi shows that $(filter) was added some three decades ago:

address@hidden            9f8301ae1ac6d9076e38ec86f12d59ba40b851bd:Revision 1.2  1988/04/23 16:16:04  roland

...

address@hidden            9f8301ae1ac6d9076e38ec86f12d59ba40b851bd:* Added the `filter', `filter-out', `strip' and `join' expansion functions.

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Features.html#Features suggests that this function was an innovation of GNU make, true, but I found "newly introduced" misleading.  I'm a native English speaker.

Yes, that's misleading: The "newly introduced" was meant to emphasize that a $(filter) function was added compared to the previous example, but you are right, it does more bad than good.

> gcc -o $ $(filter %.o, $^)

You've put a space after the comma.  I wouldn't do that in a Makefile, though I would in every other programming language.  https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Text-Functions.html#Text-Functions mostly wouldn't have that space either.  $(filter) is one of those word-oriented functions where I don't think it would matter, but it's easier to have simple rules of thumb that keep you safe.  One of the spaces after a comma here is important:

martind@swiftboat:~/tmp/warlich-2019-07-05$ cat Makefile

INPUT = a.o b.o

fn = $(1)

OUTPUT = $(call fn, $(filter-out %.o, $(INPUT)))

$(if $(OUTPUT),$(error :$(OUTPUT): is non-empty!))

martind@swiftboat:~/tmp/warlich-2019-07-05$ make

Makefile:4: *** : : is non-empty!.  Stop.

martind@swiftboat:~/tmp/warlich-2019-07-05$

> depenency

> conviniently

> reciepe

Spelling.

Thanks for your suggestions, I'm happy to include them all (patch attached), together with some other doc fixes (hopefully) improving the grammer.

0001-Add-support-for-dependency-only-prerequisites.patch
Description: Text Data

0002-Fix-documentation-for-dependency-only-prerequisites.patch
Description: Text Data