Re: Change in $(MFLAGS) format breaks automake-generated rules

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Paul.

On 05/01/2013 08:26 AM, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 2013-05-01 at 00:59 +0200, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>>    # With make 3.82, compiled from official tarball:
>>    $ make -f- <<<'all:; @echo $(MFLAGS)' -I none
>>    -I none
>>
>>    # With development version of make:
>>    $ make -f- <<<'all:; @echo $(MFLAGS)' -I none
>>    -Inone
> 
> I think MFLAGS is deprecated.  Is there a reason you use this instead of
> MAKEFLAGS?
>
Yes; differently from MAKEFLAGS, MFLAGS doesn't contain definitions of
make macros passed from the command line (definitions which can contain
whitespace, and thus prove problematic to handle), and ensures every
option present in it starts with a '-' character.

>> Is there a reason behind this change?  If not, could it be reverted?
>> No big deal if the change is intended, as I can certainly and easily
>> improve the Automake recipes instead.
> 
> I did make the change on purpose, because the new -O flag with an
> optional argument wasn't getting parsed correctly with the space (it was
> being parsed as -O, which defaults to target sync mode, plus a goal
> "none").
>
OK, got it.  This is a good enough reason.

> I didn't think it would affect anyone so I used the simplest solution,
> of removing the space.
> 
> However, I can probably make it work the old way as well and revert that
> change.
> 
No need to; since the bug is only present in an unreleased version of
Automake, I will fix it before the next release (the fix should be
very easy), and no harm will be done.

Thanks,
  Stefano