Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 16:25:39 -0500 (CDT)
From: Aaron Ucko <UCKO AT VAX1 DOT ROCKHURST DOT EDU>
Subject: Re: Changing system() [was: bug in djgpp's make]
To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Organization: Rockhurst College; Kansas City, MO

>>     I'm suddenly realizing that I'm not entirely sure what should be
>> done by make and what make is expected to turn over to the shell.  But
>> I would hope that most things will be handled in a way compatible with
>> the user's shell-of-choice.

>If I wasn't afraid to be lynched, I would be almost tempted to say Make
>should *always* call COMMAND.COM, even if the user said otherwise,
>because this at least would assure portability.  As it stands, I think
Why not just hold Makefile authors responsibile for guaranteeing
portability?  You could simplify this by adding an option telling make
to run command.com; perhaps this option could also, if at all feasible,
generate a list of external programs called (so the author could see
if there were any nonstandard utils listed).

>As an escape for those who likes using features specific to their shell
>in a Makefile (did I say that I think it's a bad habit?) there is the
>SHELL= statement in the Makefile, which even today causes Make to call
>that shell unconditionally.  So you can have the cake both ways.
Really?  When I used ms_sh, I installed sh in my /bin directory, but it
wasn't called even when the line said SHELL=/bin/sh.

--- Aaron Ucko (ucko AT vax1 DOT rockhurst DOT edu; finger for PGP public key) -=- httyp!
-=*=-Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.-=*=-
Geek code 2.1 [finger hayden AT vax1 DOT mankato DOT msus DOT edu for explanation]: 
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