Re: directory search fails!

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, 2010-09-27 at 09:05 +0330, ali hagigat wrote:
> 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.

> I said exactly the same, 'Locate' indicates location and place...

No.  Locate is a verb.  It's an action.

> 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.

If you're willing to accept "the pathname found by the search" then you
can have no argument with "the pathname located by the search".  If you
can "find" a pathname then you can also "locate" a pathname.

Trust me.  I've been speaking and writing English for a long time.

> Besides you wrote locate is a verb equivalent to "to find", why you
> did not use 'find' instead of 'locate'?

For the same reason I didn't use any of the other synonyms of "find".

> >> 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'?

I don't know; you'll have to ask Richard or Roland.  Probably they, like
Eli, felt that it was simpler to explain if it was discussed in terms of
prerequisites instead of targets.

> > 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.

If you get this far in the manual and you haven't understood what is
probably the single most fundamental concept in make, then the problem
lies much earlier than this.

> 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?

What this means is that the pathnames that are provided by make to your
recipes, via the automatic variables, may not be the ones that are found
as a result of directory search.

This should be made clearer.

> 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?

I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
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 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist