Re: use .PHONY in Makefile.in.in

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Mon, Dec 19, 2005 at 12:58:16PM +0100, Bruno Haible wrote:
> With all these phony targets, the Makefile.in.in would get even more
> complicated and harder to maintain. Especially the rule
> "A phony target should not be a prerequisite of a real target file"
> is likely to cause trouble. [...]

I believe that in the rule you quote, "phony target" means any target
which doesn't create/touch the file with the same name as the target.

The situation doesn't change if you use .PHONY to declare the "phony
targets" (in this sense).

Thusly, I don't think this "rule" can be counted as a reason against
the .PHONY target.

OTOH, I see the maintainability problem you mentioned:
It is hard to keep .PHONY up-to-date, and it is probably better to have
no .PHONY list than to have an incorrect one.  So if the need is not
very strong, it's better to let it be.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan