Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!rutgers!att!cbnewsl!siyt
From: siyt@cbnewsl.att.com (p.jayne)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: imake
Keywords: att imake
Message-ID: <1990Jul18.213435.7284@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: 18 Jul 90 21:34:35 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 22

I've been maintaining AT&T/USL's imake since X11R3.  In R2, we
rewrote it as a shell script and a C program.  Much of
the template and rules set were discarded to simplify things.
In R4, I put back most of the discarded stuff so that we
could use contributed Imakefiles w/o hacking.  (And besides,
some people were unhappy with the changes we made.)
The shell script does mostly what imake.c from the tape does,
i.e. it runs cpp through the source tree's Imakefiles.  The
C program handles the @@ stuff and additionally strips out
redundant and unreferenced Makefile variables and tosses extra
blank lines.  This means you get readable Makefiles out of the deal.

To keep my own sanity in dealing with the included files, I spent
a little time using vi, ed, usort, grep and whatever to produce an
index of what variables and defines get set where.  Finally, I made
a diagram of which included files override which others for defines
and for variables (in fish-eats-successively-smaller-fish form).
The index and the fish let me figure out what to set/change and
where to do it, which may be the hardest part of coping with imake
anxiety.  (The readable Makefiles are also invaluable.)

Has anyone else developed a home-brewed version of imake?