Re: directory search fails!

[ali hagigat]

Dear Eli,

I am reading your description about the mechanics of directory search.
The extract of your description appear in double quotation:
"the pathname found by the search may not be the one that `make'
actually uses for updating that target"
It can be expressed as: the pathname found may not be the relative
pathname typed in the prerequisite list of the target.
One advantage of your description is removing the word, "located" in
the original manual, when you say, "the pathname found by the search".
English is not my mother tongue language but as far as I know 'locate'
refers to the place of something mostly, the issue is not place here
but it is about an string found by the search.

Besides directory search is an algorithm which is executed for both
prerequisites and targets. In section '4.4 Searching Directories for
Prerequisites' it starts describing directory search, does it mean we
do not have directory search for targets?!! This seems another weak
point in the original manual.

But the manual mentions directory search for targets in Step 1 of
4.4.3, while you description omits it.

I gradually add some other comments every day.


On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:34:53 +0330
>> From: ali hagigat <address@hidden>
>>
>
>  4.5.3 How Directory Searches are Performed
>  ------------------------------------------
>
>  When a prerequisite of a target is found through directory search,
>  regardless of type (general with `VPATH' or selective with `vpath'),
>  the pathname found by the search may not be the one that `make'
>  actually uses for updating that target.  Sometimes the path of a
>  prerequisite discovered through directory search is thrown away.
>
>    This section describes the details of the decision whether or not to
>  keep the path of a prerequisite found through directory search.
>
>    The algorithm `make' uses to decide whether to keep or abandon a
>  path or a prerequisite (denoted as P below) found via directory search
>  is as follows:
>
>   1. If a prerequisite file P does not exist at the path specified in
>      the makefile, directory search is performed.
>