Re: easier nonrecursive makefiles

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Sun, 1 Aug 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> Ludovic (and others?) suggested a different approach for easier file
> name handling in nonrecursive makefile setups: provide GNU make-like
> substitution functions, such as addprefix.  They could be expanded at
> automake run time to still produce portable makefiles.

I remember suggesting some sort of substitution syntax for 
non-recursive Makefiles sometime in 2003. :-)

My experience has been that the target names are the biggest chore 
with a non-recursive build since it is common to place targets in the 
same directory level as the source code.  Providing a short-hand which 
allows elimination of foo_blah_blah_blah_SOURCES (so that 
foo_blah_blah_blah can be replaced with a simple name) would be 
extremely useful.  Automake can easily perform substitutions so that 
the result is a portable makefile.

Supporting a generic pre-processing capability in Automake would be 
quite valuable.  This would allow makefile inclusion and simple string 
substitutions to occur prior to the rest of normal Automake processing 
logic.  If a generic pre-processing approach is used, then the need to 
anticipate every future requirement is removed.  Macros defining 
useful values would simply be available in the pre-processor when the 
makefile source is expanded.  The pre-processor itself can be quite 
simplistic.

The value provided by a pre-processor would not be limited to only 
nonrecursive makefiles.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/