jmsellens@watmath.UUCP (John M Sellens) (09/29/84)
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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