Message-ID: <8D53104ECD0CD211AF4000A0C9D60AE301330CCD@probe-2.acclaim-euro.net> From: Shawn Hargreaves To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Why are tabs required in makefiles? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 09:34:11 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) Content-Type: text/plain 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 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.