Re: directory search fails!

[ali hagigat]

Why Philip Guenther wrote: "Examples cannot explain"?!!!
Paul Smith wrote an example, it was very useful in understanding the
issue. Why we did not mention the example in the manual?


On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Philip Guenther <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 9:56 PM, ali hagigat <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Please write an example to explain the logic behind directory search..
>
> Examples cannot explain, they can only demonstrate a subset of the
> logic.  There are an infinite number of negative cases, where a given
> behavior does *not* apply; there's no way for an example to show all
> of the infinite negative cases!
>
> Indeed, your own example demonstrates one of the negative case for
> directory search, where the vpath logic does *not* apply.  How can we
> provide 'an' example to illustrate all the infinite cases where the
> vpath logic doesn't apply?
>
> I tell you that your example is behaving correctly, operating as the
> info pages specify it should.  Why should the vpath for one target
> (preq1) apply to a different target (di2/preq2)?  You apparently think
> that it should, but because you don't say *WHY* you believe that, I
> cannot identify the bad step in your path to that incorrect
> conclusion.
>
>
>
> Philip Guenther
>

from    Paul Smith <address@hidden>
reply-to        address@hidden
to      Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden>
cc      address@hidden,
address@hidden
date    Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 3:44 PM
subject Re: directory search fails!
I don't follow you.  A simple example will show what I mean:

       vpath xyzzy somedir

       all: xyzzy
               @echo $<
               @echo xyzzy

Assuming that ./xyzzy does not exist and ./somedir/xyzzy does exist,
then this will print:

       somedir/xyzzy
       xyzzy

It will NOT print:

       somedir/xyzzy
       somedir/xyzzy