Dan Jacobson (18 January 2019 08:49) > --only-make-prerequisites is for folks that want to check and get > things ready first, before the President arrives for the button > pushing ceremony.
I can see other uses for it ;^> When I'm hacking on code, and intend to hack some more, it's sometimes nice to pause and get the compiler to tell me whether what I've done is all good. I'm not interested in a link step just yet, as I know the code is unfinished, but I want to see if what I've written compiles. (Then again, linking isn't as time-consuming as it used to be.) This can be implemented in the make-file: just have some intermediate target that depends on the prerequisites and doesn't do anything; the actual target then depends on that. To take your example, .PHONY: netsift-prereq netsift-prereq: myconfdir/$J.pre myconfdir/$J.cf netsift: netsift-prereq cat zz > yy ln q r /etc Of course, that doesn't play nicely with $< and friends, so isn't ideal; but, for that, you could just duplicate the prerequisites, .PHONY: netsift-prereq netsift-prereq: myconfdir/$J.pre myconfdir/$J.cf netsift: myconfdir/$J.pre myconfdir/$J.cf cat zz > yy ln q r /etc The command-line option would save the need to edit the make-file to be ready to be used this way, which would be welcome when the make-files aren't familiar (especially if they're auto-generated and numerous). Eddy. _______________________________________________ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make