Re: Inconsistent VPATH behavior ..

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Harsha Kalidindi <address@hidden> writes:

  >> GNU make works exactly as I've described above: first it looks for the
  >> pathname exactly as it is given in the makefile.

  hk> Breakthrough. No more failure to communicate. This is the nub of
  hk> the issue ..

  >> If that doesn't exist, _then_ it appends the pathname that is given  in
  >> the makefile onto each entry in VPATH, in order, and looks for that.

  hk>          VPATH=/u/p/src
  hk>          install: ../install/scripts/foo
  hk>                  $(INSTALL) ..

  hk> Command run in '/u/user/src'. If
  hk> /u/user/src/../install/scripts/foo does not exist, I would expect
  hk> it to run the command instead of looking into
  hk> /u/p/src/../install/scripts/foo ..

Well, that's actually the entire purpose of VPATH: to tell make where
else to look if it can't find the prerequisite by the pathname that the
makefile provides.  If you don't want that behavior then you will have
to stop using VPATH.  Presumably there's some other reason you need it,
and the above is just an unwanted side-effect?


The other option is to use the "vpath <pattern>" form to restrict the
VPATH lookup to only a subset of all the prerequisites in the makefile.

-- 
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