Re: forcing a rule

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Boris Kolpackov <address@hidden> writes:

  >> Have you submitted the patch to the GNU make project (via savannah.org I 
  >> believe)?  

  bk> Well, I found this to be pretty useless. I submitted a patch for
  bk> $(lastword ) which is a very simple patch with a very
  bk> straightforward (IMO) argumentation and there is a precedent (
  bk> $(firstword) ). Since I submitted it a few months ago I never
  bk> heard a word back. Also, I saw a far more bizarre features added
  bk> to make meantime (like SysV $$@ & friends) so it makes me
  bk> wonder...

I don't know what you mean by "in the meantime".  $$@ was added in 3.80
which came out over a year and half ago.  Also, you should ask the folks
pushing that patch how long they waited for it :-/ :-).

Also, $$@ was a portability enhancement, nothing more.  I don't really
like it but it helps people trying to run makefiles created for SysV
make on systems that only have GNU make.

Finally, note that you can already do "lastword" using the current set
of functions.  It's not as efficient, surely, but it is possible.

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