Re: Dependency graph dump

[Paul Smith]

On Fri, 2009-11-27 at 09:27 +0100, Gabriele Sales wrote:
> Googling around I found a reference to the (hidden) switch
> "--print-data-base", that is almost what I want. Unfortunately the
> output it produces seems partially unprocessed: for example, function
> calls inside commands are not expanded. I'd really like to be handed
> the completely transformed result, i.e. the same strings that get
> passed to the shell for execution.

I'm not sure why you say it's hidden: it's clearly documented in the
manual (you can use -p as well).  It's even in the man page.

This is the only option there is.  Also, there's no way to get a
"completely transformed result" for every target, because make doesn't
compute the expansion of the variables and functions inside the recipes
until it is ready to run that command.

Many of the contents of the recipes CANNOT be computed usefully outside
of the context of actually running make: variables that contain lists of
prerequisites that are up-to-date are not available for example.  Also,
any target-specific variables that might be inherited from parent
targets are not available unless make knows what those parent targets
are, and that's computed only through invoking make (it can even change
depending on which goal targets make is using).

And, of course, some targets don't even have recipes (if they are
created using implicit rules) and certainly we cannot expand recipes of
implicit rules as their automatic variables (just for starters) have no
useful value unless applied to a real target.  Make doesn't do implicit
rule searches on targets unless it's going to build them.

-- 
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