Re: sinclude/-incldue issue

[Paul Smith]

On Tue, 2008-12-09 at 09:58 -0800, ssaradhi wrote:
> we are using make file systems to build our source code.
> We use some options like -include or sinclude to skip,if the file
> thats
> included is not existing.
> 
> Yet for some reason,the make system fails at this very line
> complaining that the very file included doesnt exist and make system
> needs it.
> 
> Any ideas,why make system is behaving like this?

Not really.  If you want help you need to provide more details,
including cut/paste of the command you invoked, the exact error message
you received, and ideally a simple example makefile that shows the
behavior.

Offhand I'd say that some target in your makefile lists that include
file as a prerequisite, and so make is trying to build it and failing
because it doesn't exist and there's no rule to create it.

The -include thing just keeps make from complaining that the file
doesn't exist when it's being included: if you specifically list it as a
prerequisite then make will want to build it, if things that depend on
it are getting rebuilt.