Re: make help?

[NightStrike]

On 2/3/08, NightStrike <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 2/3/08, Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:
> > * NightStrike wrote on Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 03:53:36PM CET:
> > > Is there any possibility of an automake generated "help" target that
> > > would list the possible targets (or a subset of them) for make?  This
> > > could potentially be propagated upstream to the standard gnu targets,
> > > too.
> >
> > Like this?
> >
> > .PHONY: help
> > help:
> >        @echo "Please see here for a list of standard targets and their"
> >        @echo "semantics (unless the package author has overridden them):"
> >        @echo 
> > "<http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Standard-Targets.html>"
> >        @echo 
> > "<http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Standard-Targets.html>"
> >
> > I don't see how to cope nicely with overridden targets.  Note BTW that
> > the user is not supposed to override them, but it happens nonetheless.
> >
> > FWIW, I'm not yet convinced this to be all that useful (but I don't have
> > a strong opinion either way).
>
> I meant more along the lines of, for instance in the gcc project,
> there is 'make all-gcc", "make all-gmp", "make all-mpfr", etc.  I
> admit that the idea wasn't well thought out; I just know that anytime
> I try using a new project where I need to build specific parts instead
> of just "make all install", I find myself drudging painfully through a
> bunch of Makefiles to find what I need.  It'd be so much easier to see
> something like:
>
> $ make help
> The following are valid targets:
> all
> install
> lib64/lib<specific lib>.a
> custom-target-that-makes-stuff-just-work
>
> etc..


Addendum - I think there's a make help target when compiling the linux
kernel, is there not?  That's the kind of thing I was getting at, I
think (if I'm remembering correctly).