%% "Alfred M\. Szmidt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: ams> Please revert the POSIX_ME_HARDER change of backslash-newline ams> sequences are handled. There is absolutley no reason to break ams> this. Lots of old Makefile use it, and so do many new ones. If ams> one wishes to follow POSIX, one can make this the default setting ams> when POSIX_ME_HARDER (usually known as POSIXLY_CORRECT) is set or ams> a extra option, --posix. GNU Make is after all not POSIX make.
Hi; At this point I'm not considering backing out this change. First, GNU make absolutely _IS_ an implementation of POSIX standard for make: you only have to read as far as the second paragraph in the GNU make manual: > GNU make conforms to section 6.2 of IEEE Standard 1003.2-1992 (POSIX.2). Second, the change is limited to two specific areas: one is backslash/newline inside single-quoted strings, and the other is if there is no space before a backslash/newline and either nothing or only a TAB before text on the next line. I accept that some people may have a few of these, and a few people may have a lot of them, but the vast majority of makefiles do not have either of these situations. Third, various other versions of make, including all versions based on SysV make (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc.), behave the POSIX way as well: this is not something unique to GNU make. Fourth, while the new method does require some changes to make it work with backslashes inside single-quoted arguments (as described in previous threads), the old method simply cannot be made to work in situations where it is required to have a newline in the script (various types of sed scripts in particular, but definitely not exclusively): there is absolutely no way to get a newline character into a script. You are forced to do odd things like echo individual lines in a subshell and pipe the whole thing into another shell... horrible, utterly unmaintainable stuff. So, the new method is more flexible than the old method. Fifth, the POSIX behavior makes sense (to me): any command scripts in the makefile behave identically to the way the command would behave if you typed it into a shell prompt, character for character. Finally, I understand your position about making this change in behavior only when POSIX mode is enabled (using the .POSIX: pseudo-target). However, I intensely dislike having options to change basic capabilities like this: multiple modes increases the amount of testing exponentially as you have to test all different combinations. Currently there's virtually no difference between "POSIX mode" and "normal mode", and I definitely want to keep it that way as much as humanly possible. I don't believe there is enough value in keeping the old behavior as an option, given all the difficulty, overhead, and confusion that entails. I do agree with others that the change and new behavior and ways to work with it are not well-covered in the docs so I'll definitely work on that. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Find some GNU make tips at: http://www.gnu.org http://make.paulandlesley.org "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist _______________________________________________ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
