Re: MAKEFLAGS (Was: forcing a rule)

[Noel Yap]

Boris Kolpackov wrote:

> > I understand that Paul has put a hold on any new functions since he's 
> > trying to get Guile as _the_ scripting language within makefiles so I can 
> > understand why lastword, useful as it is, didn't make the cut.
>
> Well, you are lucky that you understand. When I submitted the patch
> I wasn't aware of any guile plans and a comment from Paul explaining 
> this would have been in order, don't you think?

I'm not sure how well-formed this thought was when the lastword patch was 
submitted, so I can't really say what he should've said back then.

The reason I know this now is because, in the last month or so, others trying to request 
new functions have been given this explanation.  I'd guess that your 
"treatment" was more a symptom of timing rather than some ulterior motive or 
other.

> > IME with patches for CVS, this has more of a chance (although certainly no 
> > guarantee) of working if there's a discussion about the feature.
>
> Sure I have no problem with that. Let's see how our recent discussion 
> about MAKEFLAGS progresses. 

Many years ago, I had requested some behaviour (vpath) affecting sub-makes to 
affect the current make as well.  Paul was unreceptive to the idea.  I can't 
read Paul's thoughts on this issue, but I wouldn't bet that he'd want this 
change.

It's also just occurred to me that, using MAKEFILES and the "gmake self 
wrapper" trick, you could get what you want without having to patch make.  OTOH, it 
is a bit more complicated even though the complication is hidden.

Noel