Re: .PRECIOUS for intermediates without keeping corrupt files?

[John Graham-Cumming]

On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 17:13, Wagman, Adam wrote:
> The GNU Make documentation says that .PRECIOUS is used for two
> distinct purposes: 1) to prevent intermediate targets from being
> deleted, and 2) to prevent deleting targets if make is interrupted
> (e.g. via ctrl-C).
> 
> Is there any way to get just #1 without #2?    My particular case is
> that an EXE depends on several .obj files, so that making the exe
> causes the .c/.cpp files to be compiled to the .objs, and I want to
> keep those .obj files to keep from remaking them.  However, if the
> make is interrupted, I certainly don't want corrupt .obj files left
> lying around, waiting to be linked and cause problems.

Take a look at the .SECONDARY: target.   This will mark an intermediate
target (your .objs) as both intermediate and kind-of-PRECIOUS.   The
file will get deleted if you abort make, but wont get deleted like an
intermediate would.

>From the Make manual:

   "You can prevent automatic deletion of an intermediate file by
marking it as a "secondary" file.  To do this, list it as a
prerequisite of the special target `.SECONDARY'.  When a file is
secondary, `make' will not create the file merely because it does not
already exist, but `make' does not automatically delete the file.
Marking a file as secondary also marks it as intermediate."

John.
-- 
John Graham-Cumming

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