Re: Variable assignments from shell commands

[John Graham-Cumming]

address@hidden wrote:
> According to section 8.11 of the gnu manual, I should be able to use the 
> shell command to assign a variable.  However, this doesn't work.  
>
> I've tried assigning the variable from outside a rule but the command 
> does not get executed and the variable is empty.  The only time the 
> shell command is executed is from within a rule but variable assignments 
> within rule is not allowed.
>
>      contents := $(shell cat foo)

A more complete bug report than that would be good.  $(shell) with a 
variable assignment definitely does work, so something else must be 
going on.  Can you reply with a simple Makefile that fails for you.

John.
--
John Graham-Cumming
address@hidden

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