Re: irregularities with --no-builtin-variables

[Kaz Kylheku (gmake)]

On 2021-12-27 19:30, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Sun, 2021-12-26 at 04:46 +0100, Reto wrote:
> > Is this a bug or am I missing something from the docs?
>
> The -r and -R options don't take effect until the makefiles are all
> parsed.

By the way, how is that to be understood?

Because if I, say, expand RM using $(info $(RM)) right in top-level
syntax outside of any rule, I get the expected behavior:
it expands to blank with "make -R", otherwise "rm -f".

$ make
rm -f
make: *** No targets.  Stop.
$ make -R

make: *** No targets.  Stop.
$ cat Makefile
$(info $(RM))

So if that effect is not until makefiles are parsed, that would
mean that make is parsing the entire file without expanding variables,
then putting the -R into effect, and then doing a second pass over
the parsed file to expand variables in $(info ...) and execute its
effect.