I'm not saying this should be considered a bug but it's at least an
"interesting result". I've always followed the rule of thumb that simple
(:=) assignment should be used when the RHS contains $(shell ....), and
this is still a good mnemonic 99.9% of the time, but I've run across a case
where it actually loses. Consider the following makefile:
$ cat Makefile
TARGETS := aa bb cc dd
.PHONY: all
all: $(TARGETS)
$(TARGETS): at := $(shell set -x; date)
$(TARGETS):
@:$(info Making $@ at $(at))
when making only a subset of declared targets. With simple := assignment a
shell is invoked for every target including those not being built:
$ make bb
+ date
+ date
+ date
+ date
Making bb at Fri Jun 5 08:12:25 PDT 2020
but with recursive = assignment only the required one is used:
$ make bb
+ date
Making bb at Fri Jun 5 08:12:36 PDT 2020
I understand why this happens but it does raise the question of how simple
assignment should work in this case. Here's what the manual says:
"The value of a simply expanded variable is scanned once and for all,
expanding any references to other variables and functions, *when the
variable is defined*."
But in a target-specific context should the variable be considered
"defined" at the time it's parsed or at the time it's needed?
