Re: Makefile mode's sh comment non-exactness

[Kevin Rodgers]

Dan Jacobson wrote:
> Makefile mode's colors show that it thinks this
>    cd $?.d && sed /^#/d ../$?|wget -w 2 ...
> is a comment starting at #.

It may be, depending on how one reads the GNU make manual (Makefile
Contents):

|    * `#' in a line of a makefile starts a "comment".  It and the rest of
|      the line are ignored, except that a trailing backslash not escaped
|      by another backslash will continue the comment across multiple
|      lines.  Comments may appear on any of the lines in the makefile,
|      except within a `define' directive, and perhaps within commands
|      (where the shell decides what is a comment).  A line containing
|      just a comment (with perhaps spaces before it) is effectively
|      blank, and is ignored.

The POSIX Single Unix Specification for the make command (see the
Rationale) is clearer:

| Early proposals stated that an "unquoted" number sign was treated as
| the start of a comment.  The make utility does not pay any attention
| to quotes.  A number sign starts a comment regardless of its
| surroundings.

> Yes I could use
>    cd $?.d && sed '/^#/d' ../$?|wget -w 2 ...
> but then my friends would think I was silly.

But then the shell would at least execute the sed command.

--
Kevin Rodgers