<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!-- $FreeBSD$ --> <chapter id="gods"> <title>PMake for Gods</title> <para>This chapter is devoted to those facilities in <application>PMake</application> that allow you to do a great deal in a makefile with very little work, as well as do some things you could not do in <application>Make</application> without a great deal of work (and perhaps the use of other programs). The problem with these features, is they must be handled with care, or you will end up with a mess.</para> <para>Once more, I assume a greater familiarity with &unix; or Sprite than I did in the previous two chapters.</para> <section id="searchpaths"> <title>Search Paths</title> <para><application>PMake</application> supports the dispersal of files into multiple directories by allowing you to specify places to look for sources with <maketarget>.PATH</maketarget> targets in the makefile. The directories you give as sources for these targets make up a <quote>search path</quote>. Only those files used exclusively as sources are actually sought on a search path, the assumption being that anything listed as a target in the makefile can be created by the makefile and thus should be in the current directory.</para> <para>There are two types of search paths in <application>PMake</application>: one is used for all types of files (including included makefiles) and is specified with a plain <maketarget>.PATH</maketarget> target (e.g. <literal>.PATH : RCS</literal>), while the other is specific to a certain type of file, as indicated by the file's suffix. A specific search path is indicated by immediately following the <maketarget>.PATH</maketarget> with the suffix of the file. For instance:</para> <programlisting>.PATH.h : /sprite/lib/include /sprite/att/lib/include</programlisting> <para>would tell <application>PMake</application> to look in the directories <filename class="directory">/sprite/lib/include</filename> and <filename class="directory">/sprite/att/lib/include</filename> for any files whose suffix is <filename>.h</filename>.</para> <para>The current directory is always consulted first to see if a file exists. Only if it cannot be found there are the directories in the specific search path, followed by those in the general search path, consulted.</para> <para>A search path is also used when expanding wildcard characters. If the pattern has a recognizable suffix on it, the path for that suffix will be used for the expansion. Otherwise the default search path is employed.</para> <para>When a file is found in some directory other than the current one, all local variables that would have contained the target's name (<makevar>.ALLSRC</makevar>, and <makevar>.IMPSRC</makevar>) will instead contain the path to the file, as found by <application>PMake</application>. Thus if you have a file <filename>../lib/mumble.c</filename> and a makefile like this:</para> <programlisting>.PATH.c : ../lib mumble : mumble.c $(CC) -o $(.TARGET) $(.ALLSRC)</programlisting> <para>the command executed to create mumble would be <command>cc -o mumble ../lib/mumble.c.</command> (as an aside, the command in this case is not strictly necessary, since it will be found using transformation rules if it is not given. This is because <filename>.out</filename> is the null suffix by default and a transformation exists from <filename>.c</filename> to <filename>.out</filename>. Just thought I would throw that in). If a file exists in two directories on the same search path, the file in the first directory on the path will be the one <application>PMake</application> uses. So if you have a large system spread over many directories, it would behoove you to follow a naming convention that avoids such conflicts.</para> <para>Something you should know about the way search paths are implemented is that each directory is read, and its contents cached, exactly once – when it is first encountered – so any changes to the directories while <application>PMake</application> is running will not be noted when searching for implicit sources, nor will they be found when <application>PMake</application> attempts to discover when the file was last modified, unless the file was created in the current directory. While people have suggested that <application>PMake</application> should read the directories each time, my experience suggests that the caching seldom causes problems. In addition, not caching the directories slows things down enormously because of <application>PMake</application>'s attempts to apply transformation rules through non-existent files – the number of extra file-system searches is truly staggering, especially if many files without suffixes are used and the null suffix is not changed from <filename>.out</filename>.</para> </section> <section id="archivesandlibraries"> <title>Archives and Libraries</title> <para>&unix; and Sprite allow you to merge files into an archive using the <command>ar</command> command. Further, if the files are relocatable object files, you can run <application>ranlib</application> on the archive and get yourself a library that you can link into any program you want. The main problem with archives is they double the space you need to store the archived files, since there is one copy in the archive and one copy out by itself. The problem with libraries is you usually think of them as <option>-lm</option> rather than <filename>/usr/lib/libm.a</filename> and the linker thinks they are out-of-date if you so much as look at them.</para> <para><application>PMake</application> solves the problem with archives by allowing you to tell it to examine the files in the archives (so you can remove the individual files without having to regenerate them later). To handle the problem with libraries, <application>PMake</application> adds an additional way of deciding if a library is out-of-date: if the table of contents is older than the library, or is missing, the library is out-of-date.</para> <para>A library is any target that looks like <option>-lname</option> or that ends in a suffix that was marked as a library using the <maketarget>.LIBS</maketarget> target. <filename>.a</filename> is so marked in the system makefile. Members of an archive are specified as <literal>archive(member[member...])</literal>. Thus <literal>libdix.a(window.o)</literal> specifies the file <filename>window.o</filename> in the archive <filename>libdix.a</filename>. You may also use wildcards to specify the members of the archive. Just remember that most the wildcard characters will only find existing files. A file that is a member of an archive is treated specially. If the file does not exist, but it is in the archive, the modification time recorded in the archive is used for the file when determining if the file is out-of-date. When figuring out how to make an archived member target (not the file itself, but the file in the archive – the archive(member) target), special care is taken with the transformation rules, as follows:</para> <itemizedlist> <listitem> <para>archive(member) is made to depend on member.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The transformation from the member's suffix to the archive's suffix is applied to the archive(member) target.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The archive(member)'s <makevar>.TARGET</makevar> variable is set to the name of the member if member is actually a target, or the path to the member file if member is only a source.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The <makevar>.ARCHIVE</makevar> variable for the archive(member) target is set to the name of the archive.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The <makevar>.MEMBER</makevar> variable is set to the actual string inside the parentheses. In most cases, this will be the same as the <makevar>.TARGET</makevar> variable.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The archive(member)'s place in the local variables of the targets that depend on it is taken by the value of its <makevar>.TARGET</makevar> variable.</para> </listitem> </itemizedlist> <para>Thus, a program library could be created with the following makefile:</para> <programlisting>.o.a : ... rm -f $(.TARGET:T) OBJS = obj1.o obj2.o obj3.o libprog.a : libprog.a($(OBJS)) ar cru $(.TARGET) $(.OODATE) ranlib $(.TARGET)</programlisting> <para>This will cause the three object files to be compiled (if the corresponding source files were modified after the object file or, if that does not exist, the archived object file), the out-of-date ones archived in <filename>libprog.a</filename>, a table of contents placed in the archive and the newly-archived object files to be removed.</para> <para>All this is used in the <filename>makelib.mk</filename> system makefile to create a single library with ease. This makefile looks like this:</para> <programlisting># # Rules for making libraries. The object files that make up the library # are removed once they are archived. # # To make several libraries in parallel, you should define the variable # "many_libraries". This will serialize the invocations of ranlib. # # To use, do something like this: # # OBJECTS = <files in the library> # # fish.a: fish.a($(OBJECTS)) MAKELIB # # #ifndef _MAKELIB_MK _MAKELIB_MK = #include <po.mk> .po.a .o.a : ... rm -f $(.MEMBER) ARFLAGS ?= crl # # Re-archive the out-of-date members and recreate the library's table of # contents using ranlib. If many_libraries is defined, put the ranlib # off til the end so many libraries can be made at once. # MAKELIB : .USE .PRECIOUS ar $(ARFLAGS) $(.TARGET) $(.OODATE) #ifndef no_ranlib # ifdef many_libraries ... # endif many_libraries ranlib $(.TARGET) #endif no_ranlib #endif _MAKELIB_MK</programlisting> </section> <section id="condition"> <title>On the Condition...</title> <para>Like the C compiler before it, <application>PMake</application> allows you to configure the makefile, based on the current environment, using conditional statements. A conditional looks like this:</para> <programlisting>#if boolean expression lines #elif another boolean expression more lines #else still more lines #endif</programlisting> <para>They may be nested to a maximum depth of 30 and may occur anywhere (except in a comment, of course). The <literal>#</literal> must the very first character on the line.</para> <para>Each boolean expression is made up of terms that look like function calls, the standard C boolean operators <literal>&&</literal>, <literal>||</literal>, and <literal>!</literal>, and the standard relational operators <literal>==</literal>, <literal>!=</literal>, <literal>></literal>, <literal>>=</literal>, <literal><</literal>, and <literal><=</literal>, with <literal>==</literal> and <literal>!=</literal> being overloaded to allow string comparisons as well. <literal>&&</literal> represents logical AND; <literal>||</literal> is logical OR and <literal>!</literal> is logical NOT. The arithmetic and string operators take precedence over all three of these operators, while NOT takes precedence over AND, which takes precedence over OR. This precedence may be overridden with parentheses, and an expression may be parenthesized to your heart's content. Each term looks like a call on one of four functions:</para> <informaltable frame="none"> <tgroup cols="2"> <colspec colwidth="1*"/> <colspec colwidth="10*"/> <tbody> <row valign="top"> <entry><literal>make</literal></entry> <entry>The syntax is make(target) where target is a target in the makefile. This is true if the given target was specified on the command line, or as the source for a <maketarget>.MAIN</maketarget> target (note that the sources for <maketarget>.MAIN</maketarget> are only used if no targets were given on the command line).</entry> </row> <row valign="top"> <entry><literal>defined</literal></entry> <entry>The syntax is <literal>defined(variable)</literal> and is true if variable is defined. Certain variables are defined in the system makefile that identify the system on which <application>PMake</application> is being run.</entry> </row> <row valign="top"> <entry><literal>exists</literal></entry> <entry>The syntax is <literal>exists(file)</literal> and is true if the file can be found on the global search path (i.e. that defined by <makevar>.PATH</makevar> targets, not by <maketarget>.PATH<replaceable>suffix</replaceable></maketarget> targets).</entry> </row> <row valign="top"> <entry><literal>empty</literal></entry> <entry>This syntax is much like the others, except the string inside the parentheses is of the same form as you would put between parentheses when expanding a variable, complete with modifiers and everything. The function returns true if the resulting string is empty. An undefined variable in this context will cause at the very least a warning message about a malformed conditional, and at the worst will cause the process to stop once it has read the makefile. If you want to check for a variable being defined or empty, use the expression: <literal>!defined(var) || empty(var)</literal> as the definition of <literal>||</literal> will prevent the <literal>empty()</literal> from being evaluated and causing an error, if the variable is undefined. This can be used to see if a variable contains a given word, for example: <literal>#if !empty(var:Mword)</literal></entry> </row> </tbody> </tgroup> </informaltable> <para>The arithmetic and string operators may only be used to test the value of a variable. The lefthand side must contain the variable expansion, while the righthand side contains either a string, enclosed in double-quotes, or a number. The standard C numeric conventions (except for specifying an octal number) apply to both sides. E.g.:</para> <programlisting>#if $(OS) == 4.3 #if $(MACHINE) == "sun3" #if $(LOAD_ADDR) > 0xc000</programlisting> <para>are all valid conditionals. In addition, the numeric value of a variable can be tested as a boolean as follows:</para> <programlisting>#if $(LOAD)</programlisting> <para>would see if <literal>LOAD</literal> contains a non-zero value and:</para> <programlisting>#if !$(LOAD)</programlisting> <para>would test if <literal>LOAD</literal> contains a zero value.</para> <para>In addition to the bare <literal>#if</literal>, there are other forms that apply one of the first two functions to each term. They are as follows:</para> <informaltable frame="none"> <tgroup cols="2"> <tbody> <row> <entry><literal>ifdef</literal></entry> <entry><literal>defined</literal></entry> </row> <row> <entry><literal>ifndef</literal></entry> <entry><literal>!defined</literal></entry> </row> <row> <entry><literal>ifmake</literal></entry> <entry><literal>make</literal></entry> </row> <row> <entry><literal>ifnmake</literal></entry> <entry><literal>!make</literal></entry> </row> </tbody> </tgroup> </informaltable> <para>There are also the <quote><literal>else if</literal></quote> forms: <literal>elif</literal>, <literal>elifdef</literal>, <literal>elifndef</literal>, <literal>elifmake</literal>, and <literal>elifnmake</literal>.</para> <para>For instance, if you wish to create two versions of a program, one of which is optimized (the production version) and the other of which is for debugging (has symbols for dbx), you have two choices: you can create two makefiles, one of which uses the <option>-g</option> flag for the compilation, while the other uses the <option>-O</option> flag, or you can use another target (call it debug) to create the debug version. The construct below will take care of this for you. I have also made it so defining the variable <envar>DEBUG</envar> (say with <command>pmake -D DEBUG</command>) will also cause the debug version to be made.</para> <programlisting>#if defined(DEBUG) || make(debug) CFLAGS += -g #else CFLAGS += -O #endif</programlisting> <para>There are, of course, problems with this approach. The most glaring annoyance is that if you want to go from making a debug version to making a production version, you have to remove all the object files, or you will get some optimized and some debug versions in the same program. Another annoyance is you have to be careful not to make two targets that <quote>conflict</quote> because of some conditionals in the makefile. For instance:</para> <programlisting>#if make(print) FORMATTER = ditroff -Plaser_printer #endif #if make(draft) FORMATTER = nroff -Pdot_matrix_printer #endif</programlisting> <para>would wreak havoc if you tried <command>pmake draft print</command> since you would use the same formatter for each target. As I said, this all gets somewhat complicated.</para> </section> <section id="ashell"> <title id="ashelltitle">A Shell is a Shell is a Shell</title> <para>In normal operation, the Bourne Shell (better known as <application>sh</application>) is used to execute the commands to re-create targets. <application>PMake</application> also allows you to specify a different shell for it to use when executing these commands. There are several things <application>PMake</application> must know about the shell you wish to use. These things are specified as the sources for the <maketarget>.SHELL</maketarget> target by keyword, as follows:</para> <variablelist> <varlistentry> <term><literal>path=path</literal></term> <listitem> <para><application>PMake</application> needs to know where the shell actually resides, so it can execute it. If you specify this and nothing else, <application>PMake</application> will use the last component of the path and look in its table of the shells it knows and use the specification it finds, if any. Use this if you just want to use a different version of the <application>Bourne</application> or <application>C Shell</application> (yes, <application>PMake</application> knows how to use the <application>C Shell</application> too).</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>name=name</literal></term> <listitem> <para>This is the name by which the shell is to be known. It is a single word and, if no other keywords are specified (other than path), it is the name by which <application>PMake</application> attempts to find a specification for it (as mentioned above). You can use this if you would just rather use the C Shell than the <application>Bourne Shell</application> (<literal>.SHELL: name=csh</literal> will do it).</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>quiet=echo-off</literal> command</term> <listitem> <para>As mentioned before, <application>PMake</application> actually controls whether commands are printed by introducing commands into the shell's input stream. This keyword, and the next two, control what those commands are. The <literal>quiet</literal> keyword is the command used to turn echoing off. Once it is turned off, echoing is expected to remain off until the <literal>echo-on</literal> command is given.</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>echo=echo-on</literal> command</term> <listitem> <para>The command <application>PMake</application> should give to turn echoing back on again.</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>filter=printed echo-off</literal> command</term> <listitem> <para>Many shells will echo the <literal>echo-off</literal> command when it is given. This keyword tells <application>PMake</application> in what format the shell actually prints the <literal>echo-off</literal> command. Wherever <application>PMake</application> sees this string in the shell's output, it will delete it and any following whitespace, up to and including the next newline. See the example at the end of this section for more details.</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>echoFlag=flag</literal> to turn echoing on</term> <listitem> <para>Unless a target has been marked <literal>.SILENT</literal>, <application>PMake</application> wants to start the shell running with echoing on. To do this, it passes this flag to the shell as one of its arguments. If either this or the next flag begins with a <literal>-</literal>, the flags will be passed to the shell as separate arguments. Otherwise, the two will be concatenated (if they are used at the same time, of course).</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>errFlag=flag</literal> to turn error checking on</term> <listitem> <para>Likewise, unless a target is marked <literal>.IGNORE</literal>, <application>PMake</application> wishes error-checking to be on from the very start. To this end, it will pass this flag to the shell as an argument. The same rules for an initial <literal>-</literal> apply as for the <literal>echoFlag</literal>.</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>check=command</literal> to turn error checking on</term> <listitem> <para>Just as for echo-control, error-control is achieved by inserting commands into the shell's input stream. This is the command to make the shell check for errors. It also serves another purpose if the shell does not have error-control as commands, but I will get into that in a minute. Again, once error checking has been turned on, it is expected to remain on until it is turned off again.</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>ignore=command</literal>to turn error checking off</term> <listitem> <para>This is the command <application>PMake</application> uses to turn error checking off. It has another use if the shell does not do errorcontrol, but I will tell you about that...now.</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> <varlistentry> <term><literal>hasErrCtl=yes</literal> or <literal>no</literal></term> <listitem> <para>This takes a value that is either <literal>yes</literal> or <literal>no</literal>. Now you might think that the existence of the check and ignore keywords would be enough to tell <application>PMake</application> if the shell can do error-control, but you would be wrong. If <literal>hasErrCtl</literal> is <literal>yes</literal>, <application>PMake</application> uses the check and ignore commands in a straight-forward manner. If this is no, however, their use is rather different. In this case, the check command is used as a template, in which the string <literal>%s</literal> is replaced by the command that is about to be executed, to produce a command for the shell that will echo the command to be executed. The ignore command is also used as a template, again with <literal>%s</literal> replaced by the command to be executed, to produce a command that will execute the command to be executed and ignore any error it returns. When these strings are used as templates, you must provide newline(s) (<literal>\n</literal>) in the appropriate place(s).</para> </listitem> </varlistentry> </variablelist> <para>The strings that follow these keywords may be enclosed in single or double quotes (the quotes will be stripped off) and may contain the usual C backslash-characters (<literal>\n</literal> is newline, <literal>\r</literal> is return, <literal>\b</literal> is backspace, <literal>\'</literal> escapes a single-quote inside single-quotes, <literal>\"</literal> escapes a double-quote inside double-quotes). Now for an example.</para> <para>This is actually the contents of the <shx.mk> system makefile, and causes <application>PMake</application> to use the <application>Bourne Shell</application> in such a way that each command is printed as it is executed. That is, if more than one command is given on a line, each will be printed separately. Similarly, each time the body of a loop is executed, the commands within that loop will be printed, etc. The specification runs like this:</para> <programlisting># # This is a shell specification to have the Bourne shell echo # the commands just before executing them, rather than when it reads # them. Useful if you want to see how variables are being expanded, etc. # .SHELL : path=/bin/sh \ quiet="set -" \ echo="set -x" \ filter="+ set - " \ echoFlag=x \ errFlag=e \ hasErrCtl=yes \ check="set -e" \ ignore="set +e"</programlisting> <para>It tells <application>PMake</application> the following:</para> <itemizedlist> <listitem> <para>The shell is located in the file <filename>/bin/sh</filename>. It need not tell <application>PMake</application> that the name of the shell is sh as <application>PMake</application> can figure that out for itself (it is the last component of the path).</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The command to stop echoing is set <literal>-</literal>.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The command to start echoing is set <option>-x</option>.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>When the echo off command is executed, the shell will print <literal>+</literal> set <literal>-</literal> (The <literal>+</literal> comes from using the <option>-x</option> flag (rather than the <option>-v</option> flag <application>PMake</application> usually uses)). <application>PMake</application> will remove all occurrences of this string from the output, so you do not notice extra commands you did not put there.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The flag the <application>Bourne Shell</application> will take to start echoing in this way is the <option>-x</option> flag. The <application>Bourne Shell</application> will only take its flag arguments concatenated as its first argument, so neither this nor the errFlag specification begins with a <literal>-</literal>.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The flag to use to turn error-checking on from the start is <option>-e</option>.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The shell can turn error-checking on and off, and the commands to do so are <literal>set +e</literal> and <literal>set -e</literal>, respectively.</para> </listitem> </itemizedlist> <para>I should note that this specification is for <application>Bourne Shells</application> that are not part of Berkeley &unix;, as shells from Berkeley do not do error control. You can get a similar effect, however, by changing the last three lines to be:</para> <programlisting>hasErrCtl=no \ check="echo \"+ %s\"\n" \ ignore="sh -c '%s || exit 0\n"</programlisting> <para>This will cause <application>PMake</application> to execute the two commands:</para> <programlisting>echo "+ cmd" sh -c 'cmd || true'</programlisting> <para>for each command for which errors are to be ignored. (In case you are wondering, the thing for ignore tells the shell to execute another shell without error checking on and always exit 0, since the ||<literal></literal> causes the exit 0 to be executed only if the first command exited non-zero, and if the first command exited zero, the shell will also exit zero, since that is the last command it executed).</para> </section> <section id="compatibility"> <title>Compatibility</title> <para>There are three (well, 3 1/2) levels of backwards-compatibility built into <application>PMake</application>. Most makefiles will need none at all. Some may need a little bit of work to operate correctly when run in parallel. Each level encompasses the previous levels (e.g. <option>-B</option> (one shell per command) implies <option>-V</option>). The three levels are described in the following three sections.</para> </section> <section id="defcon3"> <title>DEFCON 3 – Variable Expansion</title> <para>As noted before, <application>PMake</application> will not expand a variable unless it knows of a value for it. This can cause problems for makefiles that expect to leave variables undefined except in special circumstances (e.g. if more flags need to be passed to the C compiler or the output from a text processor should be sent to a different printer). If the variables are enclosed in curly braces (<literal>${PRINTER}</literal>), the shell will let them pass. If they are enclosed in parentheses, however, the shell will declare a syntax error and the make will come to a grinding halt.</para> <para>You have two choices: change the makefile to define the variables (their values can be overridden on the command line, since that is where they would have been set if you used <application>Make</application>, anyway) or always give the <option>-V</option> flag (this can be done with the <maketarget>.MAKEFLAGS</maketarget> target, if you want).</para> </section> <section id="defcon2"> <title>DEFCON 2 – The Number of the Beast</title> <para>Then there are the makefiles that expect certain commands, such as changing to a different directory, to not affect other commands in a target's creation script. You can solve this is either by going back to executing one shell per command (which is what the <option>-B</option> flag forces <application>PMake</application> to do), which slows the process down a good bit and requires you to use semicolons and escaped newlines for shell constructs, or by changing the makefile to execute the offending command(s) in a subshell (by placing the line inside parentheses), like so:</para> <programlisting>install :: .MAKE (cd src; $(.PMAKE) install) (cd lib; $(.PMAKE) install) (cd man; $(.PMAKE) install)</programlisting> <para>This will always execute the three makes (even if the <option>-n</option> flag was given) because of the combination of the <literal>::</literal> operator and the <literal>.MAKE</literal> attribute. Each command will change to the proper directory to perform the install, leaving the main shell in the directory in which it started.</para> </section> <section id="defcon1"> <title>DEFCON 1 – Imitation is the Not the Highest Form of Flattery</title> <para>The final category of makefile is the one where every command requires input, the dependencies are incompletely specified, or you simply cannot create more than one target at a time, as mentioned earlier. In addition, you may not have the time or desire to upgrade the makefile to run smoothly with <application>PMake</application>. If you are the conservative sort, this is the compatibility mode for you. It is entered either by giving <application>PMake</application> the <option>-M</option> flag (for <application>Make</application>), or by executing <application>PMake</application> as <command>make.</command> In either case, <application>PMake</application> performs things exactly like <application>Make</application> (while still supporting most of the nice new features <application>PMake</application> provides). This includes:</para> <itemizedlist> <listitem> <para>No parallel execution.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>Targets are made in the exact order specified by the makefile. The sources for each target are made in strict left-to-right order, etc.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>A single Bourne shell is used to execute each command, thus the shell's <varname>$$</varname> variable is useless, changing directories does not work across command lines, etc.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>If no special characters exist in a command line, <application>PMake</application> will break the command into words itself and execute the command directly, without executing a shell first. The characters that cause <application>PMake</application> to execute a shell are: <literal>#</literal>, <literal>=</literal>, <literal>|</literal>, <literal>^</literal>, <literal>(</literal>, <literal>)</literal>, <literal>{</literal>, <literal>}</literal>, <literal>;</literal>, <literal>&</literal>, <literal>></literal>, <literal><</literal>, <literal>*</literal>, <literal>?</literal>, <literal>[</literal>, <literal>]</literal>, <literal>:</literal>, <literal>$</literal>, <literal>`</literal>, and <literal>\</literal>. You should notice that these are all the characters that are given special meaning by the shell (except <literal>'</literal> and <literal>,</literal> which <application>PMake</application> deals with all by its lonesome).</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The use of the null suffix is turned off.</para> </listitem> </itemizedlist> </section> <section id="theway"> <title>The Way Things Work</title> <para>When <application>PMake</application> reads the makefile, it parses sources and targets into nodes in a graph. The graph is directed only in the sense that <application>PMake</application> knows which way is up. Each node contains not only links to all its parents and children (the nodes that depend on it and those on which it depends, respectively), but also a count of the number of its children that have already been processed.</para> <para>The most important thing to know about how <application>PMake</application> uses this graph is that the traversal is breadth-first and occurs in two passes.</para> <para>After <application>PMake</application> has parsed the makefile, it begins with the nodes the user has told it to make (either on the command line, or via a <maketarget>.MAIN</maketarget> target, or by the target being the first in the file not labeled with the <literal>.NOTMAIN</literal> attribute) placed in a queue. It continues to take the node off the front of the queue, mark it as something that needs to be made, pass the node to <literal>Suff_FindDeps</literal> (mentioned earlier) to find any implicit sources for the node, and place all the node's children that have yet to be marked at the end of the queue. If any of the children is a <maketarget>.USE</maketarget> rule, its attributes are applied to the parent, then its commands are appended to the parent's list of commands and its children are linked to its parent. The parent's unmade children counter is then decremented (since the <maketarget>.USE</maketarget> node has been processed). You will note that this allows a <maketarget>.USE</maketarget> node to have children that are <maketarget>.USE</maketarget> nodes and the rules will be applied in sequence. If the node has no children, it is placed at the end of another queue to be examined in the second pass. This process continues until the first queue is empty.</para> <para>At this point, all the leaves of the graph are in the examination queue. <application>PMake</application> removes the node at the head of the queue and sees if it is out-of-date. If it is, it is passed to a function that will execute the commands for the node asynchronously. When the commands have completed, all the node's parents have their unmade children counter decremented and, if the counter is then 0, they are placed on the examination queue. Likewise, if the node is up-to-date. Only those parents that were marked on the downward pass are processed in this way. Thus <application>PMake</application> traverses the graph back up to the nodes the user instructed it to create. When the examination queue is empty and no shells are running to create a target, <application>PMake</application> is finished.</para> <para>Once all targets have been processed, <application>PMake</application> executes the commands attached to the <maketarget>.END</maketarget> target, either explicitly or through the use of an ellipsis in a shell script. If there were no errors during the entire process but there are still some targets unmade (<application>PMake</application> keeps a running count of how many targets are left to be made), there is a cycle in the graph. <application>PMake</application> does a depth-first traversal of the graph to find all the targets that were not made and prints them out one by one.</para> </section> </chapter>