Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!pyrltd!tetrauk!rick
From: rick@tetrauk.UUCP (Rick Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Anyone know of a "better" 'make' than vanilla System-V's?.
Message-ID: <751@tetrauk.UUCP>
Date: 4 Oct 90 08:39:04 GMT
References: <1990Oct3.000440.5275@hades.ausonics.oz.au>
Reply-To: rick@tetrauk.UUCP (Rick Jones)
Organization: Tetra Ltd., Maidenhead, UK
Lines: 32

In article <1990Oct3.000440.5275@hades.ausonics.oz.au> greyham@hades.ausonics.oz.au (Greyham Stoney) writes:
>My company is working on a medium-to-large software project for which we use
>standard System-V 'make' to specify the rules by which objects are made from
>source files, and for specifying the source file dependancies.

I built a specialised development environment for my company's own products,
which used standard "make", but relied on driving it from a shell script.
Since "make" imports environment variables into its parameter set, the script
can use shell logic to assign appropriate values to environment variables, so
that one standard makefile can serve everyone.  I.e. the script invokes "make"
in the form "make -f $TOOLS/make.master" where TOOLS contains the path of the
appropriate directory.  The make.master file of course defines almost
everything in terms of variable parameters.

In my case this was further enhanced by the main "make" calling a secondary
"make" using a local makefile, and the local makefile was constructed
automatically by a makefile generator program!  This was solely to cater for
the problem of building libraries, which is a real kludge in "make".  This
allowed the programmer to define his library members in a simple ASCII text
file, rather than have to get makefile syntax right.  I didn't do include-file
dependency analysis because we didn't really need it, but you could use this
approach.

The makefile generator takes a while to get right, but the first step above of
combining shell and make is not too hard, and considerably augments the
effective power of "make" with relatively little effort.

-- 
Rick Jones			The definition of atomic:
Tetra Ltd.				from the Greek meaning "indivisible"
Maidenhead, Berks, UK		So what is:
rick@tetrauk.uucp			an atomic explosion?