Re: Quoting special characters

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Boyce <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 13:27:48 -0800
> Cc: Paul Eggert <address@hidden>, make-alpha <address@hidden>
> 
> On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
> >> It might be better to use a quoting regime that exploits the shell
> >> rather than an independent quoting regime that operates entirely outside
> >> the shell.  People who write makefiles need to know the shell quoting
> >> rules already, so if 'make' uses compatible quoting rules it'd be one
> >> less thing to learn.
> >
> > Exactly my thoughts.
> 
> I don't agree.

You don't agree with the conclusion or with the reasoning?

If you agree with the conclusion, it is pointless to argue about the
reasoning, because each one arrives at their conclusions their own
way.

> Recent enhancements have set make free from the presumption that the
> value of $(SHELL) is even a shell as commonly understood. Nowadays
> the recipe text can be passed blindly to whatever program is
> assigned to SHELL using the flags assigned to .SHELLFLAGS.  True,
> there may be very few true shells which don't understand POSIX
> quoting but that cannot be said of the entire universe of programs
> modern make may pass its recipes to.

No one said we should disable support for those other shells.  They
will still be supported, but their users will have to work slightly
harder on the quoting issue.  They already do work harder today, since
Make doesn't try to be as smart with those shells as it is with the
ones it is familiar with.