Re: Embedding newlines in commands

[Igor Pechtchanski]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005, Paul D. Smith wrote:

> %% Igor Pechtchanski writes:
>
>   ip> reply from Paul D. Smith later in that thread seems to indicate
>   ip> that this bug should be fixed, but any attempt to actually embed a
>   ip> newline in my Makefile results in the "*** missing separator.
>   ip> Stop." error.

Thanks for a prompt reply.

>   ip> Was this ever fixed?
>
> It has not been fixed yet.

Yet? :-D  (SCNR)

Frankly, I'm having a hard time imagining the syntax of a possible fix,
unless it'd simply provide a ${NEWLINE} (${NL}) built-in make variable (as
there's no way of getting a newline into a variable by other means, e.g.,
via $(shell))...  Even if the fix is not in yet, what would it entail?

> The workaround described here:
>
>   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-make/2002-10/msg00068.html
>
> will work though.

Right.  Actually, my case is a bit simpler -- the current GNU sed doesn't
stop reading the filename supplied to the 'r' command until a newline, so

sed -e '/PATTERN/{r FILE; d}'

to replace a line with the PATTERN by the contents of FILE didn't work.  A
solution would have been to replace ';' by a newline, hence my query.  My
workaround is to use

sed -e '/PATTERN/{r FILE' -e 'd}'

(looks ugly, but works).
        Igor
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