Re: Question for make experts

[David Kastrup]

"Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:

> In make, it it possible to output an informative string if part of the
> make fails?  As an example of why I'd like to know this, make doc uses
> texi2pdf and runs this with the --quiet flag.  This means that there's
> no output to the terminal - it's automatically redirected to a log
> file.  I'd like to make it possible to tell users this if texi2pdf
> fails - something like "Texi2pdf failed compiling DocName.texi.
> Please check the DocName.log logfile for errors".
>
> I've read the manual and can't see a simple way.

You use the shell.

    texi2pdf whatever || { x=$?; echo "Texipdf failed with exit status
    $x"; exit $x; }

Be sure to double up every $ inside of the Makefile so that the shell
and not make is expanding it.

-- 
David Kastrup