Re: how to use wildcard in prerequisite

[Mike Gibson]

On Monday 01 September 2003 07:26 am, address@hidden 
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to define a dependency for several files in the cmd directory like
> this:
>
> %project/out : %cmd/*.tcl
> This failed, the * did not expand as far as I could see.
>

This is because the expansion is done before any parsing of the implicit rule 
definition.  So you're literally trying to expand %cmd/*.tcl (with the %), 
which I don't think you have.  The expansion of the % in the implicit rule is 
done later.  Try using make -p and you'll be better able to understand.

> Now I tried:
> %project/out : %$(wildcard cmd/*.tcl)
>
> Now I was surpised to see only the first .tcl file get the % expanded. All
> the other files did not !(just cmd/<file>.tcl)
> So this did not work either.

Not the way you expected, no.  The expansion of what you have above is a 
single % followed by a list of filenames.  What you're expecting, which is 
the % should be appended to each filename, should be done with something like 
$(patsubst ...).

> Now I tried a work around like:
> CMD = $(shell ls cmd/*.tcl | sed 's/cmd/%cmd/')
> %project/out: $CMD
>
> Now it works as I would expect.
> (This actually reproduces a hand made list of %cmd/<files>.tcl which
> worked also.)
>
> Now I wonder, is there really not a better way to do this other than
> "hacking" by shell commands?

The shell commands could be replaced by

$(patsubst %,\%%,$(wildcard cmd/*.tcl))

However, if you're looking for a more elegant solution, then we'll need to 
know a little more about you're actually trying to do.  I'm still a bit 
confused about what your directory structure is.

> Could this be a bug?

No.

Mike Gibson