Re: function.c, unlink, copy

[Paul D. Smith]

%% David Boyce <address@hidden> writes:

  db> I previously sent in a one-line patch which adds this (it's a
  db> one-liner because the value is already calculated for build
  db> purposes; it's just a matter of "promoting" it into the binary as
  db> a make variable). But the patch wasn't accepted,

It might get in yet.

  >> But the other thing that i really want to ask for: Wouldn't it be
  >> useful to have a function like "unlink" or "copy" added, i use them
  >> very often, shouldn't that help others too?  Then you would have
  >> these functions available on ALL platforms.

  db> That makes sense at first glance, at least for unlink. But when
  db> you try to carry it to more constructive activities things quickly
  db> get complicated. Should a copy() function preserve time stamps a
  db> la cp -p or not? What about permissions? Should it behave the same
  db> on all platforms or like cp on Unix and like "copy" on Windows?
  db> What about resource forks on Mac OSX? What about recursive copies
  db> of directories? Etc.

I've made the following comment before, to not very much comment--so
maybe people hate it, I don't know :-)


IMO a portable environment like this isn't the responsibility of make.
Make has a very specific, circumscribed set of responsibilities.  What I
think would be very cool would be for people to work on porting
something like busybox to other platforms (at least as much as that
makes sense: some applets in busybox are obviously UNIX-specific).

Armed with something like that all you have to do is something along the
lines of:

    SHELL = busybox

and Bob's your uncle!

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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