Simon Gerraty wrote:

> One thing to keep in mind is that many macro expansions behave differently
> in conditional expressions - which can be very frustrating.  I have a
> vague recollection that the scope that is searched is a factor.

> X=${"${VAR:Mmatch}":?yes:no}
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Why do we need the double quotes? I can see that ${VAR:Mmatch} may
be necessary to limit the pattern but cannot explain the quotes.
Since the man page does not mention them I never tried it this way.

works without quotes
  X=${empty(VAR):?yes:no}

always yes
  X=${"empty(VAR)":?yes:no}

syntax error "bad conditional expression"
  X=${empty(VAR:Mmatch):?yes:no}


> a:
> 	@echo X=${X}
> 
> b:
> .if ${X} == "yes"
> 	@echo ok
> .else
> 	@echo no
> .endif
> 
> $ make a b
> X=no
> ok
  ^^
Can anyone explain this result?
The output of "make -dcv b" does not shed any light on this, "yes" is
not shown anywhere except in the definition of global variable X.

ciao
     Klaus