Message-ID: <352BBDA7.7D2BFE29@home.com>
From: "Edward F. Sowell" <sowelled AT home DOT com>
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Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: When in Rome...
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Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 18:10:03 GMT
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I have a complaint about the way GNU make deals with the DOS/Windows
path separator, '\'. It has been pointed out to me that I can't
use mydir\myfile in a GNU makefile because \ is an escape character for
GNU make.
The suggested workarounds are (a) use \\ or (b) use /. Well, there are
cases
(like mine) where neither will really work. 

First, a silly little example. The makefile:
../gpp/myfunct.obj:	myfunct.cpp
	gcc -v -c -o ../gpp/myfunct.obj myfunct.cpp
	move myfunct.obj f:/spark/doc/examples/int

will not work, failing at the move. Says "Too many parameters - /spark"
Apparently, the / are not converted to \ for DOS commands. If I change
the move to
	move myfunct.obj f:\spark\doc\examples\int
it doesn't give an error message, but the file is renamed
fsparkdocexamplesint!
If I change it to 
	move myfunct.obj f:\\spark\\doc\\examples\\int
then it works.  But look at the inconsistency! Now, I know I can change
the whole thing to

..\\gpp\\myfunct.obj:	myfunct.cpp
	gcc -v -c -o ..\\gpp\\myfunct.obj myfunct.cpp
	move myfunct.obj f:\\spark\\doc\\examples\\int

so it works and is consistent.  Therefore, looking for a rule on path
separators
I can use consistently, I was moved to the (somewhat unappealing) \\.
But then
the really serious problems began. 

Suppose that make is interacting with other
programs that read and write path strings from/to files, and invoking
system functions, e.g., file opening, etc.  What am I to do then?  I am
lead
into a constant changing of code and data files, "\\" to "\" for use
by the system functions and back to "\\" for make.  This, for me, is
intolerable,
since my code must be built with other compilers and make programs too.


I think I can see why things are the way they are here... GPP and GNU
make
are being used primarily by workstation warriors who are being required
to
move their Unix apps to the Windows environment.  For them, all of the
above is not likely to be a problem.  But, for those of us who were
hoping for
a public domain C++ environment for apps born and raised in Dos/Windows,
it really
doesn't meet the need. Unfortunately, it has taken a couple weeks out of
my life
to discover this.

I should add that my code WAS designed to work also under Unix. So I
carefully
set compile switches to use \ for DOS/Windows or / for Unix.  That is,
when
in Unix I do as the Unix world dictates, avoiding the temptation to try
force Unix to work with DOS/Windows syntax. Shouldn't those who port
Unix to Dos/Windows be doing acting in kind?


If there is something I'm missing that will cause me to retract the
above
analysis,  I'd like to hear about it.

Ed Sowell
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