On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 9:19 AM David A. Wheeler <dwhee...@dwheeler.com> wrote: > > GNU Make supports a number of special built-in target names > <https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Special-Targets>. > > I think it'd be helpful if some special target names could be listed as > *prerequisites* (foo: .PHONY) and doing so would have the same effect > as listing them as targets with those as the prerequisites (.PHONY. foo). > > The current approach can lead to wordiness & it's easy to accidentally swap > them. > Also, having *separate* lines to set these attributes makes it easy > to not see that these are set. > > Here's what you must currently do: > > ~~~~ > foo: > echo > foo > .PHONY: foo > ~~~~ > > I propose also allowing: > > ~~~~ > foo: .PHONY > echo > foo > ~~~~
Seems reasonable though I haven't thought carefully about it. > > Examples where this might be useful: > .PHONY, .PRECIOUS, .INTERMEDIATE, .NOTINTERMEDIATE, > .SECONDARY, .IGNORE, .SILENT, .NOTPARALLEL, > .ONESHELL Last I checked .ONESHELL was global (which is a real shame). Supporting this for special targets that don't actually work per-target would be very confusing. Britton
