Subject: Re: [PATCH] Makefile(s): avoid recipe prefix in conditional statements

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2024 14:23:44 -0700

Paul Smith <[email-masked]> writes:

> I'm not sure I understand the suggestion here.  If I preserve the
> current parsing behavior what do I tell people who cannot get their
> makefiles to work because the current parsing doesn't allow it?

Their Makefiles were not working (perhaps began with HT followed by
a command whose name happened to be "ifdef" installed in ~/bin/ifdef
or something silly like that) before your "fix" to forbid using HT
to indent conditional, so your "fix" is not breaking them any
further.

If you optionally allow .if/.else etc., you can tell them to replace
their "ifdef" with ".ifdef".  Of course you can also tell them to
replace their HT indent before "ifdef" to spaces.

But the point is that those whose Makefiles were not parsed correctly
even before your "fix" need to fix their Makefiles anyway.  The
suggestion was about helping those whose Makefiles were happily been
grokked somehow before your "fix".  If you preserve the current code,
their Makefiles that indent their "ifdef" with HT will continue to
work, so you do not have to tell them anything, no?