Re: do PHONY targets guarantee an order on dependency processing?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006, Paul D. Smith wrote:

> %% "Robert P. J. Day" <address@hidden> writes:
>
>   rpjd> $(Program): build_msg ... other targets ...
>   rpjd> ...
>   rpjd> .PHONY: build_msg
>   rpjd> build_msg:
>   rpjd>       @printf blah blah
>
>   rpjd> below this snippet, it reads:
>
>   rpjd> "Because the printf is in a phony target, the message is printed
>   rpjd> immediately before any prerequisites are updated."
>
>   rpjd> really?  i thought there was no way to guarantee the order of
>   rpjd> dependency processing.  are phony targets special in this
>   rpjd> respect?  or is the book just wrong?
>
> If you run make without -j, then prerequisites are guaranteed to be
> updated in the order in which they appear.

really?  i could swear that i've seen *numerous* postings here stating
that make doesn't guarantee the processing order of a rule's
prerequisites.  and even checking the web is guaranteed to produce
confilcting information.

for instance,
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2002/01/31/make_intro.html
states:

"Make can run the prerequisites in any order."  [By "run," i assume
the author means "process."]

yet here, http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/make.html,
you read:

"The make utility treats all prerequisites as targets themselves and
recursively ensures that they are up-to-date, processing them in the
order in which they appear in the rule."

  i'm confused.

rday