Hi make-makers, When using GNU Make as a workflow management tool, I use the feature [Choosing the Shell](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#index-_002eSHELLFLAGS_002c-value-of) and give SHELL (and .SHELLFLAGS) to [Target-specific Variable Values](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Target_002dspecific).
Doing so allows me to write recipes in a mix of e.g. bash, perl, R, sql, python, etc). When doing so, I often wish I had the ability to configure Gnu Make's [Recipe Echoing](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Echoing) to identify the SHELL executing the recipe. This would make the trace of recipe execution much more easily interpretable. if I could, I would probably choose to prefix each line of echoed recipe with the basename of the SHELL, followed by a colon and a space. Perhaps we could introduce a new special variable, say .ECHO_FORMAT, which might be expanded and used to printf the recipe about to be executed. It could have its default set as follows: .ECHO_FORMAT:=%s\n ... but could be used to my ends by setting it as: .ECHO_FORMAT=$(basename ${SHELL}): %s\n What do you think? Malcolm Cook - Scientific Data and Applications Coordinator Stowers Institute for Medical Research
