http://blog.melski.net/2013/01/01/pragma-multi-and-rules-with-multiple-outputs-in-gnu-make/ describes a (IMHO very significant, perhaps even "gaping") limitation of GNU make (and offers a (IMHO) clean/elegant solution to same).
This limitation was a show-stopper for my (and my employer's) adoption of GNU make. As a result, in 2009 I adapted an existing patch which, in short, causes GNU make to behave by default the same as emake with its '#pragma multi' in effect (see link above). This patch has worked wonderfully for me and my employer since 2009 (on the Win32/MinGW platform), but since it is absolutely incompatible with legacy make usage, it will, by itself, _never_ be accepted "as is" into the official GNU make repo. However emake has now set a precedent which, if adopted by GNU make, would allow the merging of this functionality into the mainstream of GNU make w/o breaking legacy usage. I would be more than willing to offer my patch (or maybe there are better implementations?), but I have no idea how to implement the '#pragma multi' aspect which would cause make to switch at runtime between the behavior exhibited in this patch and the default make behavior. Is anyone interested in pursuing this development? My motivations: a) moving this patch into the mainstream GNU make, reliving me of the (very minor) burden of moving it forward to new releases of GNU make. b) per (a), removing the risk that mainstream GNU make changes might break this patch in ways that might be very difficult to recover from. c) removing what I consider to be a limitation which prevents others from using GNU make. Thanks for reading, Jamie _______________________________________________ Help-make mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-make
