Re: Help with gmake.

[Paul D. Smith]

%% address@hidden (Brian Bruinewoud) writes:

  bb>   LIB-NAMES = A B

  bb>   LIB-A-OBJS = a.o ma.o
  bb>   LIB-B-OBJS = b.o bl.o

  bb>   LIBS: $(patsubst %, lib%.a, $(LIB-NAMES))

  bb>   lib%.a: $(LIB-%-OBJS)

  bb> When I discovered that this didn't work, I tried various other
  bb> ways to get similar functionality, such as using $(foreach...) to
  bb> generate the rules, etc.

If you get a newer version of GNU make and check out the manual section
on "How 'make' Reads A Makefile" you'll see why the above does not
work.

  bb> None of them worked. Is there some way to get this functionality? 

In the currently released versions (latest is 3.79.1), the only way to
do it is by including a makefile which defines these values.  You can
write a make rule to construct the makefile, then make will
automatically build that makefile when it's out of date, and
automatically re-exec itself to read the new data.

In the next version of GNU make, to be released "RSN", there will be
direct support for a feature that will allow this.  But it won't work as
you've tried it above.

  bb>   $ gmake --version
  bb>   GNU Make version 3.75, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.

Ouch.  That's old.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist