Re: make - 3.80 - return code of 2

[Paul D. Smith]

%% "Roy, David" <address@hidden> writes:

  rd> I have an older version of make (3.69.1?) and between the old
  rd> version to the new version, I see a difference in the return code
  rd> when an error occur (old was 1 and new is now 2).  What's the
  rd> rationale for this change?  (I do not see this in CHANGELOG for
  rd> 3.80).

This change was made in GNU make 3.71.  To find ChangeLogs that far back
you have to go to the source and check them out: once they get to be so
large the contents are copied to a new ChangeLog file like ChangeLog.1
or ChangeLog.2, and these are not included with the normal source
distribution.


The CVS log doesn't say why it was done exactly, but likely it's due to
the way the exit code for the POSIX standard definition of make is
defined:

  > 0
  >    Successful completion.
  > 1
  >    The target was not up-to-date.
  > >1
  >    An error occurred.

So, the new version of GNU make is correct according to the standard.

-- 
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