Yes. The thing to keep in mind is that much of the .if stuff is done at parsing or rule construction time. So if you change something (creating a file, say), then that condition won't be re-evaluated.
For the specific example given, one could replace much of the goo with: target: foobar foobar: touch foobar if you wanted to create foobar. Otherwise, I'd be tempted not to use .if exists. I'd be tempted to do something more like: target: @-if [ -f foobar ]; then cat foobar; else touch foobar; fi where you have the shell check. The primary use of exists() I've seen is: .if exists(foo.mk) .include "foo.mk" .endif although I have seen others. Warner _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"