Nick Ing-Simmons wrote:
> Craig A . Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >As far as I can tell, the OBJ_EXT macro already includes the dot on all
> >platforms.
>
> Had not noticed that.
>
> >The "-" prefixing the touch command renders it invalid on VMS;
> >does that have meaning somewhere or was that just a typo?
>
> Prepending - means "don't stop if this command fails" in most makes
> (including dmake on Win32).
>
> I added the '-' because it was touching the source files, and as
> they cam out of perforce/tar read-only Win32 cannot 'touch' them.
> Now the object files are the targets I don't think we
> need the rule at all - it is sufficient just to say objects
> depend on the .h file.
I note that MMS (the make utility from Compaq) also supports both '@' and
'-' but it is quite likely that either punctuation mark requires a space
after it to work ('@' is roughly translated as 'sh' on Unix or 'run' on Win,
'-' is a line continuation character to the shell or substring remover.
They lose their respective shell metacharacter interpretations in a Makefile
if they are followed by a space character).
You can find examples of action lines with leading "- " characters in
the [.vms]descrip_mms.template file. Here also is the
HELP topic on the matter:
MMS
Description_file
Action_line_prefixes
An action line prefix is a one-character modifier that controls the
processing of a single action line in a description file. The two
action line prefixes are:
Prefix Function
- (Ignore) Causes MMS to ignore errors generated by the action
line on which the prefix appears.
@ (Silent) Suppresses the writing to the output file of the action
line on which the prefix appears. (The output file
can be either SYS$OUTPUT or the file specified by
the /OUTPUT qualifier).
An action line prefix must appear as the first character on an action
line. The rest of the action line must be separated from the prefix
by at least one space or tab. To use both prefixes on the same
action line, type them next to each other with no intervening spaces;
they must be separated from the rest of the action line with at least
one space or tab.
HTH
Peter Prymmer
