Message-ID:	<8D53104ECD0CD211AF4000A0C9D60AE301330CCD@probe-2.acclaim-euro.net>
From:	Shawn Hargreaves <ShawnH AT Probe DOT co DOT uk>
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Why are tabs required in makefiles?
Date:	Mon, 26 Apr 1999 09:34:11 +0100
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Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com

DJ Delorie writes:
>> some actual tab characters into the makefile. I am just wondering 
>> why tabs are required at all
>
> So that make can tell the difference between its own commands (if,
> else, include) which may be indented with spaces, and user commands
> (ls, gcc, cp) which must be intended with at least a tab.
>
> Yeah, it's a silly reason, but that's the way it's always been.

I wonder how many things would break if make automatically collapsed
8 leading spaces into a tab character? That would still work for
situations like:

    ifdef SYMBOL
<tab>	command
    endif

and would avoid all the problems with tab-destroying editors. I can't
help thinking that if anyone really has written makefiles which use
the distinction between a tab vs. 8 spaces as an important syntactical
feature, they might be well advised to rewrite their makefile in any
case, since it seems somewhat crazy to be using non-visible characters
for anything important...


	Shawn Hargreaves.

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