Re: Static Pattern use of function in Prereq

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Jaye Speaks <address@hidden> writes:
        
  js> trying to build a Makefile that will run each src/*.htmlpp through
  js> cpp to preprocess ifdefs resulting in customer version of .html
  js> pages and have these .html pages created in the appropriate
  js> customer version directory.

  js> My questions are related to implementing the targets and prereqs
  js> somewhat dynamically.  My current design is to utilize Static Pattern
  js> rules to generate the prereqs, but it looks like you can't utilize
  js> text transformation functions in the prereq pattern.

Correct.  Rule targets and prerequisites are completely parsed when the
makefile is read in.  Patterns aren't resolved until after that is
done.  So, the functions operate on the pattern not the instantiation of
the pattern.

  js> 1. Is there a way to modify the prereq in a Static Pattern using
  js>    text functions.  If not, what is another solution.

Not really.  You can have multiple pattern rules using different
prerequisites, but you'd have to list a separate rule for each
customer.

Since you are going to rebuild the output for every customer if the
source changes anyway, one way to solve the problem is do it all in one
rule:

  BUILDS := _CUST1 _CUST2 _CUST3 _CUST4
  SRCDIR := src

  SRCS := $(notdir $(wildcard $(SRCDIR)/*.htmlpp))

  $(foreach B,$(BUILDS),$(B)/%.html) : $(SRCDIR)/%.htmlpp
        rm -f $(addsuffix /$*.html,$(BUILDS))
        $(foreach B,$(BUILDS),$(PP) -D$(B) $< > $(B)/$*.html &&) true

or something like that (note the above is completely untested).

If you don't like that idea you'll have to use $(eval ...) to
dynamically create new rules.

  js> 2. What are some acceptable ways to pass multiple variables to a
  js> rule.

You can't "pass variables to a rule".  Variables (except for target- or
pattern-specific variables) are global and have their values defined
globally.  When a string is expanded all variables are replaced with
whatever value they have at that time.

  js> In my makefile below, is parse up the target variable to determine
  js> its path and reuse that as a value I need in the command.  Doesn't
  js> seem like the best implementation.

The only alternative would be to use target-specific variables.

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