Re: directory search fails!

[ali hagigat]

Thanks Paul for the reply and thank you very much for the time. Sorry
to take up your time again:

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Paul Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-09-26 at 08:19 +0330, ali hagigat wrote:
>> One advantage of your description is removing the word, "located" in
>> the original manual, when you say, "the pathname found by the search".
>> English is not my mother tongue language but as far as I know 'locate'
>> refers to the place of something mostly, the issue is not place here
>> but it is about an string found by the search.
>
> Not true.  "Location" means the place of something.  "Locate" is a verb
> which means "to find".  And these targets we're talking about are not
> just strings, they're _files_ and _files_ exist in the filesystem in
> some directory somewhere... and they can be located.
>

Paul,
I said exactly the same, 'Locate' indicates location and place...
Files are located but the manual says: "the pathname located",
pathname is a character string and it is the output of Directory
Search algorithm, the file representing that pathname is actually
located not the pathname itself.
Besides you wrote locate is a verb equivalent to "to find", why you
did not use 'find' instead of 'locate'?

>> Besides directory search is an algorithm which is executed for both
>> prerequisites and targets. In section '4.4 Searching Directories for
>> Prerequisites' it starts describing directory search, does it mean we
>> do not have directory search for targets?!! This seems another weak
>> point in the original manual.
>
> Make only does directory search on the target, when it's trying to build
> that target.  Technically it does not do directory searches

If make only does directory search on the target, why the manual says:
"section '4.4 Searching Directories for Prerequisites'?

> fact that make is RECURSIVE, and every prerequisite is also a target.
>
> In the makefile:
>
>        a: b
>        b: c

If we write this fact in, '4.4.3 How Directory Searches are
Performed', that will help much.

The manual:
'...the pathname located may not be the one that make actually
provides you in the prerequisite list'
make provides us with a pathname? or the pathname is a string which
has been written in front of a target in a makefile? make is an
executable program, how it provides a pathname without a makefile? If
pathname is a file, not a string, how it can be in the prerequisite
list? So for example, we can place the content of a 1 MB file inside a
prerequisite list?