Re: non-existent prerequisite w/ empty rule makes target out of date

[gk]

At 08:02 PM 6/24/2003 -0400, Paul D. Smith wrote:
>   g> I want the prerequisite file to affect building target, only if it
>   g> exists; otherwise target should be considered up to date.
>   g> How best to achieve this?
>
> You can't.
>
> See Bug (enhancement request) #109 at the GNU make project page on
> Savannah.

I am using the following ifneq, which seems good enough for my purposes.
$(afile) is a file that may or may not exist.
Thanks for the insights.

ifneq (,$(wildcard $(afile)))
target: $(afile)
        @touch $@
else
target:
        @touch $@
endif

- Greg Keraunen
http://www.xmake.org