bug#13104: Extending automake rules w.r.t dependencies

[Karl Berry]

Back on https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=13104 ...

    Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:04:15 +0100
    From: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini@gmail.com>
    ...
    Ideally we could improve the makefile parser to check whether a
    target has an associated recipe, and only in that case make it
    override a built-in (or a previous user-defined) target; in the
    other cases, it should be just considered a declaration of extra
    dependencies.  After all, that is how (GNU) make itself behaves.

I agree with the "ideally". Unfortunately, apparently no one, including
me, is anxious to undertake a project like that.

However, I can imagine a simpler method of getting the basic
functionality of adding dependencies to a given target: Define a new
command, say, AM_ADD_DEPS, which takes two arguments, a target name and
a list of dependencies. So,
  AM_ADD_DEPS(foo, bar baz)
would write
  foo: bar baz
into the Makefile.in, with no other effects.

Would that work? Would it be useful? Just a stray thought ... --thanks, karl.