On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Jack Bates <[email protected]> wrote: > Why does "manual%.html" match "manual.html" in the case of > $(patsubst ../manual%.html,...) and ".PRECIOUS: manual%.html", but not > in the case of the target, "manual%.html: ..."?
Hmm, it appears to have been like that for a long time and the behavior is documented (c.f. section 10.5, "Defining and Redefining Pattern Rules"). The question is whether it should be counted a bug. I was going to hazard the guess that it's for compatibility with pattern rules in some other version of make, but a quick check shows that Solaris's normal make as well as its backwards compatibility "sysv-make" both permit '%' to match the empty string in pattern rules, so if it _was_ for cross-version compatibility then it was with some other (even more ancient?) version. As is, changing it to permit % to match empty strings seems like the Right Thing to me. ... > Unfortunately the "manual%.pdf" and "manual%.html" targets don't match > "manual.pdf" and "manual.html", respectively Workaround: require the % to match the 'l' too, ala "manua%.pdf" and "manua%.html". Gross, but it works... Philip Guenther _______________________________________________ Help-make mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-make
