Re: Makefile and VPATH

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, 2015-01-26 at 07:11 +0100, Odne Helleb� wrote:
> Technically its not that I want make to guess, but I wanted it to
> follow the rules sequentially, not read it all at once :)

Nope, that's not how make works.  Makefiles are not imperative: they're
declarative.  You don't describe the exact steps you want: you describe
the end result you'd like and make figures out how to do it.

But in order for that to work, of course make has to read the entire
makefile and internalize it before it can start.

If you sit down and think about what make would have to do to deal with
vpath when following the rules sequentially, you'll quickly see that
it's not feasible.

> Thanks for your explanation and especially for your link, it was
> interesting. If you've got any other links please send.

There are numerous other posts on that site and the front page has links
to other sites of interest.  Have fun!