Re: [PATCH] Makefile(s): avoid recipe prefix in conditional statements

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 9, 2024, 21:23 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqil0q1b8f.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <95f2454e449cc0126aaa40d2ab08c76b55ee3c31.camel@gnu.org>

Paul Smith <psmith@gnu.org> writes:

> I'm not sure I understand the suggestion here.  If I preserve the
> current parsing behavior what do I tell people who cannot get their
> makefiles to work because the current parsing doesn't allow it?

Their Makefiles were not working (perhaps began with HT followed by a command whose name happened to be "ifdef" installed in ~/bin/ifdef or something silly like that) before your "fix" to forbid using HT to indent conditional, so your "fix" is not breaking them any further.

If you optionally allow .if/.else etc., you can tell them to replace their "ifdef" with ".ifdef". Of course you can also tell them to replace their HT indent before "ifdef" to spaces.

But the point is that those whose Makefiles were not parsed correctly even before your "fix" need to fix their Makefiles anyway. The suggestion was about helping those whose Makefiles were happily been grokked somehow before your "fix". If you preserve the current code, their Makefiles that indent their "ifdef" with HT will continue to work, so you do not have to tell them anything, no?