> > Anyhow, in many/most cases, it's a lot easier to understand what's
> > going on when you use .for .
> 
> Yes...but .for has the problem that it's line-based; it's impossible to
> generate sub-line amounts of text from a .for repetition.

with appropriate use of += and intermediate variables, this can
generally be worked around.

Compare, for instance:

.for F in ${FILES}
FILESDIR_${F} ?= ${FILESDIR}
FOO += ${FILESDIR_${F}}
.endif

vs:

FOO = ${FILES:@F@${FILESDIR_${F}:?${FILESDIR_${F}}:${FILESDIR}}@}

(I *think* I got that right..)

The latter only faintly approximates the write-only code I had to deal
with...

					- Bill