> From: Bruno Haible <br...@clisp.org> > Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2023 21:41:24 +0200 > > Paul Smith wrote: > > Showing the "macroexpanded make sources" is difficult because make > > doesn't just expand an entire line then parse it. Makefile syntax is > > context-sensitive so you can't know how or if to expand parts of a line > > until you've already expanded other parts. Of course make could keep > > track of this for generating this kind of output. > > If no perfect solution to this problem is possible, how about > implementing a simple approximation first, and then improve it based > on user feedback?
An approximation to the facts is worse than the facts. This facility is supposed to show you which files caused a target to be rebuilt. Any approximation that doesn't list all of those outdated files will lose information. The fact that you saw a long list is a bug that was solved. Making Make less capable because of a bug is not wise, IMO.
