0000333: Add support for silent includes using "-include"

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Category

Severity

Type

Date Submitted

Last Update

0000333

[1003.1(2008)/Issue 7] Shell and Utilities

Objection

Enhancement Request

2010-10-13 04:39

2020-02-10 12:28

Reporter

dwheeler

View Status

public

Assigned To

ajosey

Priority

normal

Resolution

Accepted As Marked

Status

Applied

Name

David A. Wheeler

Organization

User Reference

Section

make

Page Number

2912

Line Number

95668

Interp Status

---

Final Accepted Text

See Note: 0000593

Summary

0000333: Add support for silent includes using "-include"

Description

The current specification for make permits "include", but does not have a "silent include" that ignores errors files do not exist. This is a disaster for automatically generating dependencies; a makefile could say "include DEPEND", but if DEPEND does not exist, the include fails, and thus any run using the makefile fails. But if the makefile is supposed to create DEPEND, we are unable to create DEPEND in the first place. For examples where this is important, see:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~evbergen/nonrecursive-make.html [^]

GNU make supports both "-include" and "sinclude" for this purpose (see http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/make/Include.html). [^]
According to this message:
http://marc.info/?l=freebsd-standards&m=118891505208650 [^]
NetBSD has added it, and FreeBSD has a patch available to support it.

This proposal suggests adding just "-include", but supporting "sinclude" (as well) would be fine. This already exists in implementations, we just need to get it into the standard itself.

Desired Action

Line 95668:
After "If the word include"
append "(optionally prefixed with '-')"

Line 95686: At the end, append:
"If the file(s) do not exist, and the word include was prefixed with '-', the
include command is ignored.
"If the file(s) do not exist, and the word include was not prefixed with '-', the processing ends in failure."

Tags

issue8

Attached Files

Relationships

related to

0000518

Applied

ajosey

Allow make's "include" to include multiple files

Notes
(0000593) nick (manager) 2010-10-28 16:43	Proposed new wording: At line 95668, change: If the word include appears at the beginning of a line to If the word include (optionally prefixed with a <hyphen> character) appears at the beginning of a line At line 95863, add the following: "If the file cannot be opened, and if the word include was prefixed with a <hyphen> character, the file shall be ignored. Otherwise, if the file cannot be opened an error occurs."

(0004773) geoffclare (manager) 2020-02-07 10:40	While preparing to apply this bug I noticed a typo in Note: 0000593. Line 95863 should be 95683. Also, the parentheses should instead be commas so that the text is normative. These are editorial matters that I thought worth mentioning here, but not worth reopening the bug for.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	New Issue
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	Status	New => Under Review
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	Assigned To	=> ajosey
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	Name	=> David A. Wheeler
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	Section	=> make
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	Page Number	=> 2912
2010-10-13 04:39	dwheeler	Line Number	=> 95668
2010-10-28 16:43	nick	Note Added: 0000593
2010-12-16 17:14	Don Cragun	Interp Status	=> ---
2010-12-16 17:14	Don Cragun	Final Accepted Text	=> See Note: 0000593
2010-12-16 17:14	Don Cragun	Status	Under Review => Resolved
2010-12-16 17:14	Don Cragun	Resolution	Open => Accepted As Marked
2010-12-16 17:14	Don Cragun	Tag Attached: issue8
2011-12-07 23:25	dwheeler	Issue Monitored: dwheeler
2020-02-07 10:40	geoffclare	Note Added: 0004773
2020-02-10 12:28	geoffclare	Status	Resolved => Applied
2020-03-18 15:21	geoffclare	Relationship added	related to 0000518

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