Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!fkittred
From: fkittred@bbn.com (Fletcher Kittredge)
Newsgroups: gnu.utils.bug
Subject: Re: make 3.55 infinite loop
Message-ID: <45050@bbn.COM>
Date: 31 Aug 89 13:00:34 GMT
References: <1989Aug31.014333.18904@fxgrp.fx.com>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: fkittred@BBN.COM (Fletcher Kittredge)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 18

In article <1989Aug31.014333.18904@fxgrp.fx.com> grady@fxgrp.fx.com (Steven Grady) writes:
>It seems like the new feature that a production that has commands
>but no dependencies should always be executed is a mistake.

If you are talking about the feature that if I have the two line makefile

foo:
	@echo hello

that hello is echoed, then you are wrong that this is a new feature.  This
has been in every version of make I run across (many versions!). In addition,
it is documented in Feldman's orignal 1978 article describing make, "Make -
A Program for Maintaining Computer Programs".  For gmake not to include
this feature would break many makefiles and backwards compatability.

regards,
fletcher
Fletcher E. Kittredge  fkittred@bbn.com