Re: [bug #42447] Fix exporting symbols for recursive make on VMS.

[John E. Malmberg]

On 6/1/2014 3:22 PM, h.becker wrote:
> On 05/28/2014 07:00 AM, John Malmberg wrote:
> > This patch fixes Make on VMS to export symbols so that recursive and nested
> > make commands will work.
> >
> > This also exports a foreign command for the make image that was run.
> >
> > Some of the tests still fail because VMS currently does not do shell expansion
> > of exported symbols.  I will be looking at adding that capability in the
> > future as part of improving posix shell simulation.
>
> Sorry, I don't understand what is menat with "VMS currently does not do
> shell expansion of exported symbols." Any example?

I can not put "''foobar'" in a recipe where foobar is an exported 
symbol.  While DCL is not technically a shell, in the context of make it 
is easiest to consider it a shell.

> On the other hand, wouldn't it be enough to ALWAYS generate a VMS
> command procedure for an action and insert DCL symbol definitions at the
> beginning of that file?

I am more inclined to try to avoid generating the VMS command procedure 
where ever possible at this time.  For one thing, it does not handle the 
case for built-ins.  And it may be desired to create more built-ins such 
as handling library creation more efficiently.

And the pipe command may allow implementing I/O redirection with out a 
command procedure if the lines are short enough.

The current code appears to be always using the older limitation on the 
command size when determining when to switch to command files, instead 
of basing it on the version of VMS used for the compile.

For exported symbol substitution, I would prefer it to be done when the 
command to be sent to the child process is created.

At the present time with this patch, the archive patch, and your 
multi-line variable hack:

454 total tests.
405 Passing.
 16 skipped.
 43 failing.

Regards,
-John