CURDIR broke in make-3.79.1 & make-3.80

[Marc Peters]

First, let me say the the GNU toolset is a fine product.  The tools make it a pleasure to participate in the software development field. Now on to the problem... CURDIR doesn't work as advertised in make-3.79.1 and make-3.80. Consider the following makefile in /tmp: .PHONY:   x x:     @echo $(CURDIR) Now, run it:     bash[/tmp]$ make     /tmp Okay, what we expected.  Now try this.     bash[/tmp]$ export CURDIR=uhoh     bash[/tmp]$ make     uhoh Not what we expect; however, it would be what we expect if we had type 'make -e'.  As evidence, we provide the following documentation from http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_chapter/make_5.html: For your convenience, GNU make sets the variable CURDIR to the pathname of the current working directory for you. If -C is in effect, it will contain the path of the new directory, not the original. The value has the same precedence it would have if it were set in the makefile (by default, an environment variable CURDIR will not override this value). Note that setting this variable has no effect on the operation of make This paragraph directly contradicts the observed behavior.  However, it does mention use of the -C option.  Further testing will show the faulty behavior exists in the presence of the -C option, also. The consequences of this misbehavior is that any makefiles that take advantage of CURDIR (e.g., linux comes to mind) will fail if the user's environment contains a value for the CURDIR variable.  This is unfortunate, as some other applications require CURDIR to be set (e.g., Rational Rose) for them to function properly. Examples of failures caused by CURDIR:     http://lists.strongswan.org/pipermail/users/2004-October/000426.html     http://ozlabs.org/pipermail/linuxppc-dev/2001-July/011336.html     http://www.uclinux.org/pub/uClinux/archive/att-7664/01-error.txt The mailing lists are full of frustrated people without the ability to chase the problem. Your consideration of looking into this would be greatly appreciated.

_______________________________________________
Bug-make mailing list
Bug-make@gnu.org
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make