Re: gmake troubles under Win XP -- opening shells instead of executing commands

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> writes:

  sb> Well, no, not always. For instance, it prints "rm abc" but I don't
  sb> believe it actually passes "rm abc" to the command shell, since
  sb> CMD.EXE doesn't recognize "rm" as a command.

There is no translation of commands like that anywhere in GNU make, _that_
I know for sure.  Remember that make can be built to invoke different
shells, not just CMD.EXE; often people who use GNU make on Windows
systems will also install a UNIX shell there for this purpose.

One note: GNU make will delete intermediate files for you right before
it exits.  When it deletes these files it doesn't invoke a shell at all;
it just uses direct system calls like unlink() to remove the file.  When
it does this, it prints "rm <file>" even though it doesn't actually run
the program "rm".  That could be what you're seeing, if these are
intermediate files.  Check the GNU make manual for information on
intermediate files.

  sb> But what I'm asking is, how could I find out _exactly_ what it
  sb> passes to the command shell, character for character, including
  sb> command-shell switches?

There is no way to get more than what you already see without adding
code to GNU make.

-- 
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