Re: Number of arguments, a. la $# in gnu make?

[Paul Smith]

On Sat, 2014-02-15 at 09:17 -0800, Rakesh Sharma wrote:
> This is a template for a make-based "tr" macro which transliterates
> from listA to listB in the text.
> 
> Before running "tr" I intend to run some validations on the arguments
> to "tr".  The macro "-tr-validate" does that task and it is here that
> the number of arguments to a function's need was sorely felt. 

I'm not sure I see the point in showing different error messages for
"missing" vs. "empty" arguments.  If you don't need to keep that
distinction then you have a much simpler result: just see if any of the
values you expect are the empty string.

> Also in this macro is it possible to factor in the $0 in the exit-code
> macro itself, so that we dont need to specify it in the invocation of
> exit-code macro everytime.? I tried various alternatives using
> $(eval.... but nothing worked.

I don't see any way it's possible.  When you invoke call $0 is always
set to the current function.  Once that's done it's not possible to
access the previous $0 from the "calling" function, inside the "called"
function.  There's no facility in GNU make to access the "outer" value
of an overridden variable.