Re: sed --posix does not catch incomplete arguments

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Bruno,

thanks for your work on this.

* Bruno Haible wrote on Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 12:55:51AM CEST:
> address@hidden Newlines in Make Rules
> address@hidden Newlines in Make Rules
> address@hidden Newlines in @file{Makefile} rules
> address@hidden @file{Makefile} rules and newlines
> +
> +In shell scripts, newlines can be used inside string literals.  But in
> +the shell statements of @file{Makefile} rules, this is not possible:
> +A newline not preceded by a bashslash is a separator between shell
> +statements.  Whereas a newline that is preceded by a bashslash gets
> +removed, together with the backslash that precedes it.

This isn't the whole truth.  Posix (I don't recall which version)
requires backslash-newline to be passed as such to the shell, and GNU
make 3.81 changed semantics in this regard.  See info make "Splitting
Lines".  But many other makes don't implement this yet IIRC, so you
can't make use of this feature portably.

https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?1332
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.make.devel/202

>  So, how can a
> +newline be used in a string literal?

Cheers,
Ralf