.SILENT: (without prerequisites) doesn't work as expected when
.SILENT: some_target (with prerequisites) is present:
$ cat Makefile
.SILENT:
.SILENT: target_a
target_a:
echo target_a_recipe
target_b:
echo target_b_recipe
$ make target_b
echo target_b_recipe
target_b_recipe
$
It looks like the .SILENT: with a recipe clobbers the .SILENT:
without, which is at best undocumented spooky action-at-a-distance wrt
target_b behavior. Reversing the order of the two .SILENT:
declarations gives the same behavior. I think what should happen is
the global .SILENT: (with no prerequisites) wins. Whether other
.SILENT: with_targets in the same run should then result in an error
or warning is debatable. I guess this could be a breaking change but
the present behavior seems clearly buggy. Is there a strategy for
incrementally changing this sort of thing?
Britton
