From:	tor AT sn DOT no (Tor Sjowall)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Make problem with spaces instead of tabs
Date:	Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:38:21 GMT
Organization:	SN Internett
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Message-ID:	<328a1275.420624053@news.sn.no>
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il> wrote:

>
>On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Tor Sjowall wrote:
>
>> I'm sure there is some historic argument for insisting on the tabulator as
>> a prefix to make command lines, but I cannot see any problems with
>> accepting a space too.
>
>The reason is compatibility with other Unix Make's.  If Make accepts a
>space, it lets you produce Makefiles that won't be useful with other
>versions of Make on Unix.  On the other hand, *all* versions of Make,
>including those which come with DOS compilers, support a TAB as the first
>character. 

It's true that 'spaced' makefiles would not work with Unix make programs.
But then, the makefile from dos wouldn't work anyway because of the CR+LF
incompatibility. 

Traditionally, in DOS tabulators were used to compress text files by
replacing up to 8 spaces. Because of this, there are several different DOS
text editors that treat tabulators as a compressed space and not as a
character of it's own right. I don't know if tabulators were used  the same
way in Unix. There are always problems when moving from one system to
another. 

I suggested to modify that specific copy of make to accept both space and
tabulator as an easy fix for one users problems. I still think that this is
a valid option. The alternative has been suggested: 'get a decent editor!'

Tor.

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