gnumake and tabs

[Matt Lavoie]

Hi Folks,

It seems that Make is about the only thing left in the modern computing
world that relies on the difference between tabs and spaces for correctness.
Ok, that's a bit overstated... :)

Every now and again, I have to stand up for 'tabs' in makefiles, and point
folks in the right direction when their editor quietly replaces tabs with
spaces and a makefile no longer works.  This seems an anachronism.  I wonder
if there's a better way.

Toward that end:
        (1) Is there a build option for gnumake to make tabs unimportant in
makefiles?
        (2) Is the parser tightly coupled to the use of tabs?

Thanks,

Matt Lavoie
nVidia, Inc.