Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!datlog!dlhpedg!cl
From: cl@dlhpedg.co.uk (Charles Lambert)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Slave shell in nmake
Message-ID: <367@dlhpedg.co.uk>
Date: 11 Jan 88 15:09:34 GMT
References: <206@ksr.UUCP> <3325@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Sender: news@dlhpedg.co.uk
Reply-To: cl@datlog.co.uk (Charles Lambert)
Organization: FSG@Data Logic Ltd, Queens House, Greenhill Way, Harrow, London.
Lines: 20
Summary: What is the scope of the slave environment?

In article <3325@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> gsf@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Glenn Fowler[eww]) writes:
> [... speaking of nmake(1)...]   Most problems involve the
>property that old make actions are executed one line at a time by
>separate shells whereas each nmake action is executed as a block by
>a single shell.

We recently acquired nmake from the AT&T Toolchest.  Since we haven't got
ksh(1),  I converted it to run with Bourne shell (which doesn't provide
inheritance of shell functions).  Looking at the source,  I couldn't decide
for certain whether there should be one slave shell for the entire execution
of nmake, or whether a separate shell should be spawned (and subsequently
input-terminated) for each rule block.  The alternate consequences are that
the current directory and environment variables either have scope for
the entire make (so one rule can alter the environment in which a
subsequent rule executes) or only for one rule.

Anyone able to enlighten me?

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Charles Lambert		ukc!datlog!dlhpedg!cl