Re: make: existence-only prerequisites

[Edgar Fuß <ef%math.uni-bonn.de@localhost>]

DH> I don't remember anything that just checks 'existance'
DH> without checking the timestamp.

EF> Which, to epeat myself,  would be extremely useful, especially for 
EF> directories
EF> (because adding a file means updating the directories mtime, which ...).
EF> I always end up with something like
EF> 	test -d ${d} || mkdir -p ${d}
EF> which doesn't feel very make-like.

TRC> Traditionally make(1) doesn't handle dependencies on directories very
TRC> well for various reasons
The reasons being?

TRC> and the traditional approach is to use a dummy file in the directory:
TRC> 
TRC> foo/.stamp:
TRC> 	touch foo/.stamp
Which a) creates a file you may have to ignore afterwards and b) updates the 
directory's time stamp causing gratuitous command execution later.