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Path: utzoo!watmath!jmsellens
From: jmsellens@watmath.UUCP (John M Sellens)
Newsgroups: net.bugs
Subject: Bug in Make - comments don't work as documented
Message-ID: <9218@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Sep-84 15:27:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.9218
Posted: Sat Sep 29 15:27:54 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Sep-84 01:05:55 EDT
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 24

The way make handles comments and the way the documentation says
they are handled are inconsistent.

The documentation says that "all characters after a aharp (#) are ignored,
as is the sharp itself" ('Make - A Program for Maintaining Computer
Programs', S.I. Feldman, page 3, under Description Files and Substitutions).

But - try this as a Makefile:

# This is a comment
all : ; echo hello # This is not a comment
# This is a comment
	echo goodbye # This is not a comment either
nothing: # This is a comment

Now, I can see the reason for this, and it would otherwise be impossible
(as near as I can figure out)  to get a '#' on a command line.  Perhaps
the comment convention should be changed to "lines beginning with a sharp
are ignored" and forget trying to allow trailing comments ...

John M Sellens
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