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ID | Category | Severity | Type | Date Submitted | Last Update | ||
0001420 | [1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2] Shell and Utilities | Editorial | Clarification Requested | 2020-11-07 20:27 | 2024-06-11 09:08 | ||
Reporter | psmith | View Status | public | ||||
Assigned To | ajosey | ||||||
Priority | normal | Resolution | Accepted As Marked | ||||
Status | Closed | ||||||
Name | Paul Smith | ||||||
Organization | GNU Project | ||||||
User Reference | |||||||
Section | make | ||||||
Page Number | 2979 | ||||||
Line Number | 98879 | ||||||
Interp Status | --- | ||||||
Final Accepted Text | Note: 0005256 | ||||||
Summary | 0001420: Clarification: where are internal macros available? | ||||||
Description |
In the section "Internal Macros" we see: > The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that can be used in target and inference rules. It is not clear from this text what is meant by "can be used in ... rules". In GNU make for example, internal macros (called "automatic variables" in the GNU make manual) are available only within the commands of a rule but not available within the prerequisites of a rule. Does the statement "can be used in" mean to suggest that these macros can be used in the prerequisites list of a given rule as well? If so, we must clarify what it means when a non-$@ variable is used in the prerequisites list. |
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Desired Action |
Change the text: The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that can be used in target and inference rules. to: The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that can be used in the commands of target and inference rules. |
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Tags | tc3-2008 | ||||||
Attached Files | |||||||
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Notes | |
(0005103) joerg (reporter) 2020-11-07 22:01 |
Your seem to miss that the macros $< and $* are undefined in case of explicit rules. smake does not expand $< or $* for explicit rules. SunPro Make and gmake both expand these macros, but use completely incompatible rules to expand these macros in case of explicit rules. These rules result in the same expansion for some constraints and give different results for other constraints. Your text thus is inacceptable for standardization. BTW: The background for this question was a question from a bug-tracking system that has been caused by an incompatibility in the BSD make program and was related to the use of $@ in the dependency list of an explicit target rule. Make macros seen in the dependency list of a target rule are expanded by the parser already and at that time, $@ is undefined. |
(0005104) psmith (developer) 2020-11-08 13:42 |
I am aware of the difference in $< and $* in explicit rules. My suggested change is not related to that, and doesn't make this behavior any more or less defined WRT POSIX than it is now, so that is not relevant as to whether the suggested change is acceptable. If you wanted to make the handing of these internal macros inside of explicit rules more clear than it currently is, please file a separate issue and we can discuss there. > Make macros seen in the dependency list of a target rule are expanded by the parser already and at that time, $@ is undefined. You (and I) may _believe_ that, but the text of the standard doesn't _say_ that. Hence my request for clarification. If you think the standard DOES say that already please quote the text that says so. My suggested change ONLY makes clear that internal macros are not defined except for inside commands. It is not intended to address any other issue than that. |
(0005105) joerg (reporter) 2020-11-08 16:17 |
In order to avoid missinterpretations with the dynamic macros, I like to make an alternate proposal that is aligned with the behavior of the UNIX make utility. Change the following sentence on page 2898 line 97447 from: The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that can be used in target and inference rules. into: The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that shall be expanded in the command sections of rules. Not all of these internal macros are expanded with all types of rules, see the detailed description below and the rationale section for the the System V dynamic dependency feature. |
(0005106) psmith (developer) 2020-11-08 16:52 |
I don't see the point in making this statement, since each explanation of the individual internal macros explains which types of rules it is required for and which it is not required for. For example, the $< macro description already says "The meaning of the $< macro shall be otherwise unspecified." (other than implicit rules and .DEFAULT), etc. I don't think it's needed to refer to the rationale section from within the standard like this; the existing text is very clear on this point without it. My concern here is specifically whether internal macros need to be assigned before the prerequisites are expanded, or not. The standard is not clear (enough) on this point, in my opinion. Perhaps a change like this would be sufficient: The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that will be assigned while the commands of target and inference rules are evaluated, as described below. Just to clearly point people to the individual macro discussions to follow. |
(0005107) joerg (reporter) 2020-11-08 21:30 |
The proposed text from Note: 0005106 does not really contain a new statement, since that information is already available if you combine existing statements from different locations in the standard text for the make utility. On the other side, your proposal still does not seem to directly answer the related question from your customer in your bug data base. The dynamic macros are specified as returning values that are only available while a target rule or an inference rule is evaluated. On the other side, the standard already mentions that while reading target rules by the parser, contained macro references in every target rule need to be expanded immediately. At that time, a value for $@ however is not available, so the rule tgt: $@.c needs to be expanded into tgt: .c while specifying tgt: $$@.c is required to expand to: tgt: $@.c at parse time and that may later be expanded as dynamic dependency at the time the rule is evaluated. Well, in case the make program implements support for the dynamic dependency feature that is not required by POSIX. |
(0005109) psmith (developer) 2020-11-08 23:43 |
> At that time, a value for $@ however is not available, You are _assuming_ that, because that's how implementations of make (that attempt to be POSIX compliant) work today: the standard does not _say_ that they are not available. That's the problem. If you can find text in the standard that says that $@ is not set before prerequisites are expanded, please quote that text. There's nothing in the standard that I can find that says that make doesn't have to work like this: * Read in the rule definition line * Expand the target * Assign the internal macro $@ to the name of the target * Expand the prerequisites And in fact, the current wording of the standard is ambiguous enough that it could be argued that it IS required: the standard says that internal variables "can be used in target and inference rules". The prerequisites are definitely part of target and inference rules. All I want in this issue is to clear this one thing up. I'm not trying to add new requirements, discuss $$@, etc. Merely clarifying that internal macros are only required to be available in the commands, not "in target and inference rules" generally, is sufficient and nothing else needs to be added. |
(0005256) geoffclare (manager) 2021-03-04 16:30 |
On page 2979 line 98879 change:The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that can be used in target and inference rules.to: The make utility shall maintain five internal macros that can be used in the commands of target and inference rules, as described below. |
Issue History | |||
Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
2020-11-07 20:27 | psmith | New Issue | |
2020-11-07 20:27 | psmith | Status | New => Under Review |
2020-11-07 20:27 | psmith | Assigned To | => ajosey |
2020-11-07 20:27 | psmith | Name | => Paul Smith |
2020-11-07 20:27 | psmith | Organization | => GNU Project |
2020-11-07 20:27 | psmith | Section | => make |
2020-11-07 22:01 | joerg | Note Added: 0005103 | |
2020-11-08 13:42 | psmith | Note Added: 0005104 | |
2020-11-08 16:17 | joerg | Note Added: 0005105 | |
2020-11-08 16:52 | psmith | Note Added: 0005106 | |
2020-11-08 21:30 | joerg | Note Added: 0005107 | |
2020-11-08 23:43 | psmith | Note Added: 0005109 | |
2021-03-01 16:56 | nick | Project | 1003.1(2004)/Issue 6 => 1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2 |
2021-03-01 16:56 | nick | Page Number | => 2979 |
2021-03-01 16:56 | nick | Line Number | => 98879 |
2021-03-01 16:56 | nick | Interp Status | => --- |
2021-03-04 16:30 | geoffclare | Note Added: 0005256 | |
2021-03-04 16:31 | geoffclare | Final Accepted Text | => Note: 0005256 |
2021-03-04 16:31 | geoffclare | Status | Under Review => Resolved |
2021-03-04 16:31 | geoffclare | Resolution | Open => Accepted As Marked |
2021-03-04 16:31 | geoffclare | Tag Attached: tc3-2008 | |
2021-03-19 09:53 | geoffclare | Status | Resolved => Applied |
2024-06-11 09:08 | agadmin | Status | Applied => Closed |
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