The section on Automatic Variables is silent on ordering of lists; is it
safe to assume they will preserve the original order, and can that be
addressed in the doc?
For instance the patch below adds "in the order originally specified" for
$?; there would need to be similar verbiage of $^ et al. Alternatively
maybe this could be addressed with an extra sentence in the intro where it
says "Here is a table of automatic variables:".
diff --git a/doc/make.texi b/doc/make.texi
index 135f58bc..d8da2b90 100644
--- a/doc/make.texi
+++ b/doc/make.texi
@@ -10124,9 +10124,9 @@ implicit rule (@pxref{Implicit Rules}).
@vindex ? @r{(automatic variable)}
@item $?
The names of all the prerequisites that are newer than the target, with
-spaces between them. If the target does not exist, all prerequisites
-will be included. For prerequisites which are archive members, only the
-named member is used (@pxref{Archives}).
+spaces between them, in the order originally specified. If the target
+does not exist, all prerequisites will be included. For prerequisites
+which are archive members, only the named member is used
(@pxref{Archives}).
@cindex prerequisites, list of changed
@cindex list of changed prerequisites
