Re: Generating missing depfiles by an automake based makefile

[Jan Engelhardt]

On Wednesday 2023-02-08 03:39, Dmitry Goncharov wrote:
>
>This rule restores a missing depfile file by creating a file with one
>line '# dummy'. (Next version of automake will create an empty one).
>There must have been a reason for generating such a depfile.

depfiles are created ahead of make so that the include command
in Makefiles succeeds (include-with-ignore is non-portable AFAIR).


>However, this depfile fails dependency tracking. Once a depfile was
>removed and recreated in this shape, it will no longer perform its
>function.

depfiles are not specifically tracked; this is impossible,
due to a chicken-egg problem.

.Po file contents control when an .o file -- and thus also
the .Po file itself -- is remade.

If a .Po file has no practical content, there is no indication
that it needs to be remade.