Follow-up Comment #6, bug #17752 (project make):
I tend to agree, my change caused quite a few regressions according to the
GNU make documentation. However, I also don't think the original 3.80 behavior
is correct. That "ought to exist" is a misnomer. Who said that just because a
file is made a prerequisite of some target, it ought to exist? What if this
target is not used in this compilation episode? A makefile can contain
different sets of rules that are used to build different things at the request
of the user. Why mentioning the file as a prerequisite in one set of rules
should affect the other set?
I agree that the correct way would be to actually try to build the file (or
make sure that it can be built) be it via an implicit rule, DEFAULT, etc. Not
sure how easy it will be to implement something like this, though. In other
words, before deciding on an implicit rule, we need to make sure all the
prerequisites that came from this rule either exist or can actually be built.
Should I open a separate bug report for this?
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