Trevor Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in [EMAIL PROTECTED]:">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> %% Trevor Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> tj> I'm trying to understand the use of # in makefiles. >> >> Any occurance of a literal "#" in the makefile is considered a >> comment except in the following situations: > >> Using backslash to escape the comment character is the official >> method. This is even required by the POSIX standard for make. If the >> docs don't make this clear, there's a bug there. > > Here's all I could find the docs to say: > >|* `#' in a line of a makefile starts a "comment". It and the rest of >| the line are ignored, except that a trailing backslash not >| escaped by another backslash will continue the comment across >| multiple lines. Comments may appear on any of the lines in the >| makefile, except within a `define' directive, and perhaps within >| commands (where the shell decides what is a comment). A line >| containing just a comment (with perhaps spaces before it) is >| effectively blank, and is ignored. > > No mention of a backslash there as an escape for the #. And just to > be certain, in case my version of make is older, I checked the text at > http://www.fsf.org/manual/make/html_node/make_14.html#SEC13 it too > does not mention the escape route either. I've read the make manual many times and so I think that this omission IS a documentation 'bug'. I, also, did not know until reading this thread, that a backslash would be used to escape the meaning of a '#' to make. I would naturally have tried that, I suppose, at some point along the line, if i had been faced with the requirements that Trevor was. But it wouldn't have been easy to figure out since it isn't orthogonal with the rest of make: '\$' doesn't escape a dollar sign, for example (only '$$' -- doubled dollars -- allow a symbol starting with '$' to be unmolested by make). Best, Soren A _______________________________________________ Help-make mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-make
