Re: make -V

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 09:40:46PM -0700, Simon J. Gerraty wrote:
 > sys.mk *is* platform dependent or at least what you find in FreeBSD and
 > NetBSD.  The sys.mk I ship is generic, but will look for sys/NetBSD.mk
 > sys/Darwin.mk etc to find the platform dependent bits if available.

It should not be except in a very few ways. Of course, it looks like
ours has leaked a bunch of goop from our build system into it since I
last inspected it closely. Bleagh.

 > But the nob need not be set there, it can be set anywhere - even on the
 > command line:

Yeah sure, but the point is, it shouldn't be set in sys.mk, and the
default behavior of make shouldn't be platform-dependent, or you lose
the ability to write makefile systems and expect them to work
elsewhere.

(It's one thing to set it in bsd.own.mk or some such place so it's the
default for the OS build; quite another to mess around with the
defaults applied to 3rd-party software.)

 > >It seems to me like adding another command-line option is the best
 > >path.
 > 
 > That was the original proposal (and the patch I was looking for), but no
 > one wanted the default behavior changed.

No, nobody wants the default behavior changed. But that doesn't rule
out a command-line switch. If you want the full expansion, do "make
-xV FOO" or something instead of "make -V FOO".

Also, given that the -V option does not evaluate makefiles in the
normal way, it's a little odd for its behavior to depend on (or even
be able to depend on) settings in the makefiles themselves.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost