Hi -
I've created two enhancements to gnu make. The first is procedure support,
a'la macro's. The second is a single-level recursive assignment. Both are
detailed below. The patch is available on request, or at:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/makeng/patches/
Procedure Support:
Make currently lacks the ability to do multiple things on a single
line. As such, I've implemented 'procedure support', which is best
displayed by the example below:
define my-procedure
var1 := $1
foo := bar
test :
@echo This is a test
endef
...
$(proc my-procedure,somevalue) # above fragment inserted at this point
This utilizes the 'define/endef' variable creation functionality already
existing within make to create multi-line variables. These multi-line
variables are treated as makefile fragments, and are inserted in to the
current flow via layered calls to "read_makefile". The results of this
functionality allow a given script to be executed at will without the need
for duplication of source.
Single Level Recursive Assignment:
Currently, make supports two different basic types of variable
assignment. ":=" assignment and "=" assignment create a simply expanded
and recursively expanded variable, relatively. I have added a third type
of assignment without altering the two types of variables. This operator,
"^=", performs a single-level expansion to the rhs of the assignment, and
copies the resulting value into the left hand variable, setting it to be a
recursive variable. For example, in current make:
foo = $(bar)
bar = end
alph = $(foo)
The value of "alph" will, obviously, be "$(foo)". However, if what you
wanted was to copy the value of foo, there is no way of doing so.
Ergo:
foo = $(bar)
bar = end
alph ^= $(foo)
Now, with a single level of expansion, alph will have the value of $(bar)
such that it is independent from any future values of foo. $(alph) will
still result in 'end' as a value.
Both of these have been implemented against make-3.79.1, and have no known
negative side effects against any current makefile functionality (i.e. all
current makefiles will continue to function as expected).
I would dearly like to integrate these patches in with the rest of the
source tree. Please let me know any questions or comments you might have
regarding these features.
Thanks,
--Benn
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