Re: make dist improvements

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Behdad Esfahbod wrote on Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 11:10:20PM CEST:
> Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > * Behdad Esfahbod wrote on Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 10:56:02PM CEST:
> >> Right.  So why is:
> >>
> >> AMTAR = TAR_OPTIONS="$(TAR_OPTIONS)" ${SHELL}
> >> /home/behdad/src/git/fd.o/cairo/build/missing --run tar
> >>
> >> not backward-compatible then?
> > 
> > Because it breaks an external script that calls
> >   TAR_OPTIONS=foobar make dist
> 
> That's what I understood.  But if make imports env vars as make vars, doesn't
> the $(TAR_OPTIONS) in the proposed AMTAR definition pick up the user's set
> TAR_OPTIONS env var and things continue to work?

Only if you pass '-e' to make, does it import environment variables as
make macros.  It is not always desirable to do so.

Cheers,
Ralf