Re: trailing whitespace in make macros (was: bug#7868: splitting up test suites)

[Stefano Lattarini]

[dropping autoconf-patches]

Hi Ralf, and thanks for the patch.  More comments about non-obvious
code are always welcome!

Just a nit below ...

On Saturday 22 January 2011, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> [ moving from automake bug#7868 ]
> 
> * Ralf Wildenhues wrote on Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 11:06:48AM CET:
> > * Stefano Lattarini wrote on Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 10:19:24PM CET:
> > > On Thursday 20 January 2011, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > > > That is the reason the check-TESTS rule is so ugly (and recursive) in
> > > > the first place.  I really would like to avoid more instances of this
> > > > wart; so specifying files without extension is Not Good(TM).
> > > >
> > > OK, noted (and these considerations could IMHO end up somewhere in the
> > > manual).
> > 
> > Good suggestion.  They should be mentioned in the portability section of
> > autoconf.texi if they aren't already, and as ## comments in check.am.
> 
> Proposed patches for Automake maint and Autoconf below.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ralf
> 
>     Add comment to check-TESTS rule working around make 3.80 bug.
>     
>     * lib/am/check.am (check-TESTS): Update comment.
>     Suggestion by Stefano Lattarini.
> 
> diff --git a/lib/am/check.am b/lib/am/check.am
> index 5728081..d792372 100644
> --- a/lib/am/check.am
> +++ b/lib/am/check.am
> @@ -235,6 +235,9 @@ check-TESTS:
>  ## OTOH, this means that, in the rule for `$(TEST_SUITE_LOG)', we
>  ## cannot use `$?' to compute the set of lazily rerun tests, lest
>  ## we rely on .PHONY to work portably.
> +##
> +## Work around a GNU make 3.80 bug expanding trailing whitespace in
> +## `TESTS = foo.test $(empty)'  to `foo.log .log' in $(TESTS_LOGS).
>
Hmm... I tend to read this as "we work around a GNU make 3.80 bug here;
we do so by  expanding trailing whitespace ...".  What about this
formulation instead:
  ## Trailing whitespace in `TESTS = foo.test $(empty)' causes GNU make
  ## 3.80 to erronously expand $(TESTS_LOGS) to `foo.log .log'.
  ## Work around this.
?

>       @test -z "$(TEST_SUITE_LOG)" || rm -f $(TEST_SUITE_LOG)
>       @list='$(TEST_LOGS)';                                           \
>       list=`for f in $$list; do                                       \
> 

Regards,
  Stefano