[bug #17881] Better documentation of make rules

[Howard Chu]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?17881>

                 Summary: Better documentation of make rules
                 Project: make
            Submitted by: hyc
            Submitted on: Thursday 09/28/2006 at 20:26
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Enhancement
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
       Component Version: None
        Operating System: None
           Fixed Release: None

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Details:

The GNU make manual should state explicitly in section 4.2, Rule Syntax,
something to this effect:

When multiple prerequisites are listed for a rule, their order is
insignificant. In particular, you should not assume that prerequisites will
be processed in left-to-right order. Rules that list prerequisites that
depend on other prerequisites in the same rule are invalid and will break
when processed by a parallel make.

For example, given a rule

targetA: reqOne reqTwo reqThree


if "reqThree" cannot be built successfully until "reqOne" already exists,
then this rule does not specify the actual dependencies of targetA. The
correct rules would be:

reqThree: reqOne

targetA: reqTwo reqThree







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