Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bbn.com!gildea
From: gildea@bbn.com (Stephen Gildea)
Newsgroups: gnu.utils.bug
Subject: Make can't capture shell output in a variable
Message-ID: <8909121931.AA08668@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 89 19:32:12 GMT
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Lines: 18

In Make 3.55, I can't find a feature similar to the shell backquote:
the ability to set a Make variable to the output of a shell command.

SunOS 4.0 Make has the feature I want.  You can set a variable with :sh=
instead of = and it will take the value to be a shell command.

For a sample use, consider this piece of a Makefile.  /bin/arch is a
program that prints what you're running on: "sun3", "sun4", etc.

ARCH:sh=/bin/arch

LIBDIR=lib/$(ARCH)

myprog: $(OBJS)
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $(OBJS) -L$(LIBDIR) $(LIBS)


 < Stephen