Re: Problem with absolute path

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Boris Kolpackov <address@hidden> writes:

  bk> If /tmp/out exists (/tmp/out/bin and /tmp/out/obj do not exist)
  bk> then everything works file. When /tmp/out does not exist make
  bk> fails. I have to idea about the logic behind this.

I assume you meant to say "no idea" :).

Anyway, the idea was certainly performance: if a directory doesn't exist
and there are no rules in your makefile to create it (that is, there are
no targets that allow make to create that directory), then in make's
model it can never exist, so removing it from the search path is a
performance improvement.  For directories that are often not there
(think the CVS or RCS subdirectories, etc. which not only aren't there
much of the time, but are associated with "match anything" rules) this
can be significant.

Anyway, that's the only reason I can think of.


However, this check was causing more problems than it was worth (to me)
and I've already removed it from the next release.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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