Re: Automagic Listing of targets,prereqs

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Tristan Van Berkom <address@hidden> writes:

  tvb> I was wondering if there is a way to list targets and
  tvb> prerequisites in a way that the Nth element in list 1 depends on
  tvb> the Nth element in list 2.

Not using "traditional" make capabilities.

  tvb> If one were to write a dependancy like so:

  tvb> $(TARGETS):$(PREREQUISISTES)

  tvb> this means (mistaken am I ?) that every `single' target in the
  tvb> former list depends on `all' the prereq's in the latter list.

You are correct.

  tvb> I tried something like this:

  tvb> $(foreach prereq, $(PREREQS),                    \
  tvb>     $(foreach, target $(TARGETS),                \
  tvb>  $(if $(findstring $(prereq), $(target)), \
  tvb>      $(target):$(prereq))))

  tvb> exept I cant figure out how to violently add newlines instead of
  tvb> whitespace in between the elements of the above generated list
  tvb> (and even then, would they be considered targets ? I guess so
  tvb> since the pre-proccessing gets done before targets are
  tvb> considered).

You can get newlines by using the define/enddef feature to declare a
variable value with newlines in it.

But, it would not work.  A single line of a makefile cannot expand into
multiple lines.  Even if the expansion contains newlines it will still
be considered by the make parser as one line.

  tvb> My last resort I guess is to pipe that list through `sed' for the
  tvb> newlines; into a file on disk... and then include them in the
  tvb> makefile.

Something like that, yes.

  tvb> PS: I'm useing GNU Make 3.79

If you upgrade to GNU make 3.80 you can make use of the new $(eval ...)
function feature; this will allow you to do what you want without the
include trick above.

Note that there are a few known bugs in this feature in 3.80; they will
be fixed in the next release.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist