Re: Why $(LD) is defined but not used in any implicit rules?

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, 2018-12-31 at 17:28 -0600, Peng Yu wrote:
> I see that LD is defined in as shown in --print-data-base. But no
> rules use it. Then what is the purpose to define it? Should either
> adding a rule use LD, or deleting its definition? Thanks.

There is no rule to use it because none of the built-in rules need it:
linking rules use the compiler front-end to do linking correctly.

It exists in the default database because... it's always been there...

I don't see any reason to remove it, and there are undoubtedly some
makefiles out there relying on it existing and being defined by default
which would be broken if we did remove it.