Re: Make CVS (Win32) improperly leaves batch files with -n

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "J. David Bryan" <address@hidden>
> Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:55:22 -0500
> 
> Running the current CVS version under Windows with the "-n" (--dry-run) 
> option against the following example makefile:
> 
> 
> all:
>         @echo hello
>         @echo there
> 
> 
> ...will leave two batch files in the TEMP directory each time it is run.  
> Running without -n properly cleans up the files.

Thanks, I will look into fixing this.

> Related to this, could someone kindly explain why the above sample commands 
> are passed via batch files at all, instead of by invoking "cmd /c echo 
> hello" directly?

I think the problem is even earlier: why does Make invoke the shell
for this simple Makefile?  I will try to look into that as well when I
have time.

If Make does need to invoke the shell, the Windows port always forces
use of batch files with cmd.exe (sh.exe is invoked as on Unix, by
default).  I'm guessing that this is because the quoting rules are
very different on Windows, and because Windows 9x has a different
(more stupid) shell; so whoever wrote that code probably didn't want
to deal with the resulting complications.