Re: RFC: .ALIAS builtin pseudotarget

[Boris Kolpackov]

Fabio Alemagna <address@hidden> writes:

> I've submitted some days ago a patch to Make's patch manager, which
> makes... Make support a new kind of special, builtin target, the
> .ALIAS target.

I think while this feature looks appealing at the beginning it has
limited usability. Think about this: when do we usually about 
timestamp of a prerequisite? In all cases I can think of: when we
are updating real files (e.g., building `foo.o' from `foo.c' or
`libfoo.so' from `foo.o' and `bar.o'). In other words, you normally
don't care about timestamps of a prerequisite unless you are updating 
a target based on this prerequisite. The central point here is that
when you care about timestamp you also want the prerequisite (i.e.,
you will use it in a command to create the target).

Now to your proposal: what you are suggesting essentially is 
a timestamp but the prerequisite is hidden, there is no way you can
access it. Here is an example:

.ALIAS: alias

alias: foo.c

foo.o: alias
        $(CC) -o $@ -c ???