Re: Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies
On Sun, Jun 9, 2019 at 7:46 PM Masahiro Yamada wrote: > > On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 10:38 AM Paul Smith wrote: > > > > On Sun, 2019-06-09 at 18:46 -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote: > > > As syntactic sugar, > > > I'd like to see selected special targets allowed as dependencies. > > > When this happens, it's the same thing as if the target was listed > > > as a dependency of the special target. E.g., you could express > > > the same thing above as: > > > > > > all: .PHONY do-this do-that > > > > That's a cool idea. I can't think of any issues with it. > > > Just talking about Linux Makefiles, > we need to duplicate phony targets anyway > since phony targets are assigned to a variable 'PHONY'. > > For example, like this > https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v5.2-rc4/Makefile#L501 > > (BTW, I think this idea was provided by Paul.) > > > > Besides, this might be an unrelated topic, > is it a good idea to support .PHONY for pattern rules? I definitely recall wanting this at some point. After a few minutes search I can't find when, where, or why though :) Britton ___ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
Re: Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies
On Sun, Jun 9, 2019 at 2:47 PM David A. Wheeler wrote: > > Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies > > Problem: > It's often the case that a target also needs to be a special target. E.g.: > .PHONY: all > all: do-this do-that > > Obviously this *works*, but it consumes many extra lines & > requires duplication of target names. For example, > if you misspell the "duplicated" names bad things happen. > For short makefiles this isn't a big deal, but with lots of rules > it gets annoying. > > Solution: > As syntactic sugar, > I'd like to see selected special targets allowed as dependencies. > When this happens, it's the same thing as if the target was listed > as a dependency of the special target. E.g., you could express > the same thing above as: > > all: .PHONY do-this do-that > > This doesn't add new *functionality* to a makefile, but if you're > creating a GNU make specific makefile anyway the savings of > lines can be significant. It also eliminates a source of errors. I also find having to write .PHONY: all over annoying. Not sure the proposed syntax is the best (not that I have any particular problem with it, just wonder if there are any good alternatives). > I propose that this abbreviation with the following special targets: > .PHONY > .PRECIOUS > .INTERMEDIATE > .SECONDARY > .IGNORE > .SILENT > .NOTPARALLEL > .ONESHELL Aren't e.g. NOTPARALLEL and ONESHELL global in effect at the moment? Is the proposal to allow making them target-local or does make already allow that somehow and I'm not aware? The manual says for ONESHELL: ONESHELL If .ONESHELL is mentioned as a target, then when a target is built all lines of the recipe will be given to a single invocation of the shell rather than each line being invoked separately (see Recipe Execution). The documentation for other special built-in targets mentions their sensitivity to supplied prereqs (e.g. .PHONY). Maybe the docs need fixed here. Britton ___ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
Re: Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies
On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 10:38 AM Paul Smith wrote: > > On Sun, 2019-06-09 at 18:46 -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote: > > As syntactic sugar, > > I'd like to see selected special targets allowed as dependencies. > > When this happens, it's the same thing as if the target was listed > > as a dependency of the special target. E.g., you could express > > the same thing above as: > > > > all: .PHONY do-this do-that > > That's a cool idea. I can't think of any issues with it. Just talking about Linux Makefiles, we need to duplicate phony targets anyway since phony targets are assigned to a variable 'PHONY'. For example, like this https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v5.2-rc4/Makefile#L501 (BTW, I think this idea was provided by Paul.) Besides, this might be an unrelated topic, is it a good idea to support .PHONY for pattern rules? We cannot write like this: .PHONY: %config Linux Makefiles use 'FORCE' as an alternative solution. See https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v5.2-rc4/Makefile#L556 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v5.2-rc4/Makefile#L1419 'FORCE' is an idiom used in Linux Makefiles to run the target forcibly, but I think it is slightly different from .PHONY. -- Best Regards Masahiro Yamada ___ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
Re: Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies
On Sun, 2019-06-09 at 18:46 -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote: > As syntactic sugar, > I'd like to see selected special targets allowed as dependencies. > When this happens, it's the same thing as if the target was listed > as a dependency of the special target. E.g., you could express > the same thing above as: > > all: .PHONY do-this do-that That's a cool idea. I can't think of any issues with it. ___ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies
Idea: Allow certain special targets as dependencies Problem: It's often the case that a target also needs to be a special target. E.g.: .PHONY: all all: do-this do-that Obviously this *works*, but it consumes many extra lines & requires duplication of target names. For example, if you misspell the "duplicated" names bad things happen. For short makefiles this isn't a big deal, but with lots of rules it gets annoying. Solution: As syntactic sugar, I'd like to see selected special targets allowed as dependencies. When this happens, it's the same thing as if the target was listed as a dependency of the special target. E.g., you could express the same thing above as: all: .PHONY do-this do-that This doesn't add new *functionality* to a makefile, but if you're creating a GNU make specific makefile anyway the savings of lines can be significant. It also eliminates a source of errors. I propose that this abbreviation with the following special targets: .PHONY .PRECIOUS .INTERMEDIATE .SECONDARY .IGNORE .SILENT .NOTPARALLEL .ONESHELL --- David A. Wheeler ___ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
