Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 09:45:21 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Tor Sjowall <tor AT sn DOT no>
Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Make problem with spaces instead of tabs
In-Reply-To: <328a1275.420624053@news.sn.no>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961117094254.12547L-100000@is>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Tor Sjowall wrote:

> >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. 

That is why you should always run your Makefiles through DTOU before
uploading archives that should support both DOS and Unix.  Most Unix
systems have `dos2unix' program that will do that, so it's not too much of
a problem even if you forget.  In contrast, the spaces thing is much more 
difficult to spot and correct.