Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 14/23] Makefile: re-add and use the "shellquote" macros

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:31:01 -0800

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> All of the above may very well explain why we decided not to use
> $(call shellquote) in the past, and it may also explain why it is
> safe to start using it again today, but it does not explain why we
> want to do so in the first place.
>
> Having to write
>
> 	$(call shellquote,$(VAR))
>
> in longhand is much more cumbersome to read, write and merge than
> defining a prepackaged VAR_SQ just once and refer it as
>
> 	'$(VAR_SQ)'
>
> everywhere.

Having said all that, I would not have minded if this change were
more isolated and turned things like

CHAINLINTTMP_SQ = $(subst ','\'',$(CHAINLINTTMP))

to use the $(call shellquote) mechanism, if all of us found it
easier to read than repeating the same line-noise substitutions for
many variables.

What was irritating was primarily that the patch went one step
further to eliminate the _SQ variant variables, making the resulting
sites that use them harder to read and understand.