Re: make: empty lhs for SysV style subst

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Fri, 04 Mar 2011, Simon J. Gerraty wrote:
> Our make seems to be the odd man out (esp wrt Solaris) for the 
> following makefile:
>
> FOO ?=
> FOOBAR = $(FOO:=bar)
> all:
>         @echo FOOBAR = $(FOOBAR)
>
> if FOO is empty it should print
>
> FOOBAR =

Yes, it should append "bar" to each word, doing nothing if there 
are no words.

> +               if (pattern.leftLen == 0 && *nstr == '\0') {
> +                   newStr = nstr;      /* special case */
> +               } else {
> +                   newStr = VarModify(ctxt, &parsestate, nstr,
> +                                      VarSYSVMatch,
> +                                      &pattern);
> +               }

Will this do the right thing in the presence of changes to the way 
words are separated (:tsX, :tW, and friends)?

--apb (Alan Barrett)