> Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 14:10:53 +0100
> From: Edgar Fuß <e...@math.uni-bonn.de>
>
> TRC> Traditionally make(1) doesn't handle dependencies on directories very
> TRC> well for various reasons
> The reasons being?
Sorry, I don't remember them all, other than the one you already
cited, that adding things to the directory changes its mtime!
> TRC> and the traditional approach is to use a dummy file in the directory:
> TRC>
> TRC> foo/.stamp:
> TRC> touch foo/.stamp
> Which a) creates a file you may have to ignore afterwards and b) updates the
> directory's time stamp causing gratuitous command execution later.
Right, so you write dependencies on foo/.stamp instead of foo.
bar: foo/.stamp
...do something involving the foo/ directory...
