Re: Naming: a rose by any other ...

[Paul Smith]

On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 15:21 +0000, Boris Kolpackov wrote:
> Paul Smith <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > The problem is I'm not terribly happy with the naming.  I've never
> > really known what to call these things: are they "shell command lines",
> > "command script lines", "recipe lines", or ...?
> 
> I would call it "rule recipe" or "rule recipe lines". The variable
> name could be RECIPE_PREFIX.

Well, it seems "recipe" is the winner as the only multiple-vote getter
(there were not many votes however :)).  I prefer to drop the "rule"
because I think it's unnecessary (and annoying alliterate): what other
kind of recipe could there be?

In order to really make this change it will require fairly extensive
changes to the GNU make manual, to introduce this term and modify all
the places that talk about recipes to use this term, rather than
whatever ad hoc language they currently use.

As for the variable, I had chosen ".CMD_PREFIX" before I asked my
question so that's pretty similar to Boris's ".RECIPE_PREFIX" (POSIX
reserves targets and variables beginning with "." for implementations,
so from now on I'm going to try to use that namespace for new features).

Another option was proposed to match the shell's "IFS" (Internal Field
Separator) and use ".IRS" (Internal Recipe Separator).  I'm not sure the
analogy is complete because the IFS separates words, while the recipe
prefix char demarcates lines.  It might be too obscure.  On the other
hand the UNIX hacker in me, preferring less typing, likes it!

Any other suggestions?

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