> > you can't really do that.  you don't know where you'll really end up
   > > after the ..'s, due to symlinks.
   > 
   > So its only used in a controlled environment.
   
   there's also the option of not reinventing the wheel and using
   realpath(3) on systems where it's available..


to be honest, i think the "full" path is actually more useful -- you get to
see where the makefile has been used, not just it's canonical location.