Re: make: creating a file's parent directory

[christos%astron.com@localhost (Christos Zoulas)]

In article <20150714171819.GN576%trav.math.uni-bonn.de@localhost>,
Edgar Fuß  <ef%math.uni-bonn.de@localhost> wrote:
>There must be an easier way doing what I want.
>
>I have a rule generating dir/file and I need to make sure dir exists before 
>that rule is run.
>Now it's tempting to write
>
>dir:
>	test -d ${.TARGET} || ${INSTALL} -d ... ${.TARGET}
>
>dir/file: dir ...
>	... >${.TARGET}
>
>but that causes dir/file's rule to be re-run if you touch dir/another_file, 
>thus updating dir's time stamp.
>
>I don't want to repeat the rule creating dir over several dir/file*'s rules.
>
>I don't want to create dir unless some dir/file* actually needs to be created.
>
>The best I came to think of was turning the dir rule into a .USEBEFORE and 
>adding that to the dir/file* dependencies.
>
>What one would need is a dependency operator insuring the sources do exist 
>but not that the target is up-to-date relatively to them, which (I guess) 
>doesn't exist.
>
>There's an easier way, right?

You can always use the .BEGIN target instead...

christos