Re: [Tiger-devel] [PATCH] my last makefile patch was bad ... sorry.

[Paul Telford]

On 10 Sep 2003, Ryan Bradetich wrote:

> P.S. the := assignment for PLATFORM_SCRIPTS breaks on HP-UX,
> not sure why.  Changing the assignment to = fixes the problem.  Anyone
> know the difference between = and :=?

On a Linux machine, 'info make' on has the details in the "Setting
Variables" section:

 Variables defined with `=' are "recursively expanded" variables.
 Variables defined with `:=' are "simply expanded" variables; these
 definitions can contain variable references which will be expanded
 before the definition is made.


On an HP-UX box, the definition is somewhat different:

 The value assigned to a macro can be overridden by a conditional
 macro definition.  A conditional macro definition takes on the form
 target := string1 = string2.  When the target line associated with target
 is being processed, the macro value specified in the conditional macro
 definition is in effect.  If string1 is previously defined, the new
 value of string1 will override the previous definition.  The new value of
 string1 takes effect when target or any dependents of target are being
 processed.



HTH,


 Paul.