Re: 3.81.90: bug or feature ?

[Denis Onischenko]

Thanks for reply.

> Hm.  The reason you're getting this error is that you're trying to
> assign a variable with a space in the name ("@ HOST").  Starting with
> this version of GNU make, we do not allow variables with spaces in their
> names to be assigned (you can do it with a trick but I do not recommend
> that).
>
> I believe this makefile has always had a syntax error in it and you just
> never noticed until now.  I think there was supposed to be some variable
> assigned to this value; in other words, rather than a make variable "@
> HOST" being set to the string '"$(HOST)" ; test ".$$HOST"' ... etc.,
> some other variable was supposed to be set to this entire value.
>
> Without seeing the entire makefile there's no way to know however.


I attach this Makefile.

It seems that the NORMAL_INSTALL variable is assigned to the shell
command line "@ HOST = "$HOST"; test ".$$HOST"= ...", because in
another Makefile this variable is used in target rule as:

install-binPROGRAMS: $(bin_PROGRAMS)
        @$(NORMAL_INSTALL)
        test -z "$(bindir)" || $(MKDIR_P) "$(DESTDIR)$(bindir)"


i.e. HOST is not MAKE variable. Instead it is the shell variable in
shell command line

And I thought that the symbol ":" is a special symbol that is used to
define a value from next line

Makefile
Description: Binary data