Re: multi-line commands with quoted SHELL

[Petr Machata]

Paul Smith wrote:
> > The problem is that when SHELL contains quotations etc., /bin/sh is 
> > invoked, and whole command is passed through that.  But the outer shell 
> > then destroys the backslash-newline sequences.  The solution is to 
> > singly-quote these.  The attached patch against make 3.81 does this.
>
> Hm.  Personally I think this is an error and should not be handled, even
> as it is currently handled.

Yes, that did cross my mind, but then I though maybe there is some 
requirement e.g. on side of posix.

> If the user sets:
>
>         SHELL = "/bin/sh"
>
> in my opinion make should try to invoke the program
> '"/bin/sh"' (including the quotes).  Having a quoted value of SHELL
> invoked using /bin/sh -c (with another level of "indirectness") is, in
> my opinion, wrong.
>
> I can only assume this behavior of trying to manage quotes in the value
> of SHELL is due to some bizarre behavior of some long-forgotten make
> that GNU make tried to duplicate.

Probably.  I went ahead and opened the bug at savannah, so that it's 
possible to track and mark resolutions appropriately:
  https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?19232

Thanks,
PM