> Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2023 00:23:33 -0000 (UTC) > From: chris...@astron.com (Christos Zoulas) > > Yes, this is indeed a lot better. I prefer though: > > MAN+= \ > bar.7 \ > foo.7 > > It is faster to parse, involves less typing, whitespace is cleaner.
This one doesn't have the same pattern for every line, so it makes merging and sorting harder -- do M-x sort-lines on the content lines, and you'll come up with: MAN+= \ foo.7 bar.7 \ which does the wrong thing, and only if you're lucky will fail in an obvious way rather than just silently omitting some entries. In portable makefiles I usually write: MAN= \ bar.7 \ foo.7 \ # end of MAN so at least each line has the same pattern, making merging and sorting easier.