Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ctbilbo!ray
From: ray@ctbilbo.UUCP (Ray Ward)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: make -b does what?
Message-ID: <23@ctbilbo.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 90 00:25:27 GMT
References: <5980062@hpfcdc.HP.COM> <1990Feb22.042021.4936@phri.nyu.edu>
Reply-To: ray@ctbilbo.UUCP (Ray Ward)
Organization: Communications Technology Corp
Lines: 22

In article <1990Feb22.042021.4936@phri.nyu.edu> roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>lois@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Lois Gerber) writes:
>> This question is directed at OLD (and I mean OLD) Unix gurus :
>> Can anyone explain to me clearly what the -b option is for in make?
>	Beats the hell out of me.  I can't even find make in my (6th
>edition) Unix manual at all.  Did I get a defective manual?

I would suspect the -b came in somewhere around System III.  Steve Talbott's
_Managing Projects with Make_ ( O'Reilly and Assoc. 1-800-338-NUTS )
describes the option:

   The -b option is, in most implementations, on by default.  It
   assures backward compatibility with earlier versions of _make_,
   so that old description files continue to work.

I have no idea what the old description file format differences were.

-- 
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Ray Ward                                          Email:  uunet!ctbilbo!ray  
Voice:  (214) 991-8338x226, (800) 331-7032        Fax  :  (214) 991-8968     
=-=-=-=-  There _are_ simple answers, just no _easy_ ones. -- R.R. -=-=-=-=