[m-dev.] diff: detect linking with inconsistent grades

[Tyson Richard DOWD]

Peter Schachte wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Fergus Henderson wrote:
> 
> > > Couldn't you have foo.m compile into
> > > foo_grade.o (eg, list.m -> list_asm_fast_gc.o)?  Then mmake have ensure
> > > that each file was compiled in the right grade before even trying to link.
> > 
> > I think that solution would be a bit intrusive.  The long names, e.g.
> > 
> > 	list_asm_fast_gc_tr_prof_tag3_ubf_picref.o
> > 
> > would be annoying.
> 
> Fine, then assign a short name to each grade, so it would just be something
> like: 
> 
> 	list_fgtp3up.o

Well, now the nonsense names would be annoying. 

And this kind of approach makes the problem of writing 'mmake clean' quite 
difficult (well, actually, the problem of waiting for mmake clean to
terminate is the difficult bit).  
I think I'd rather have control over my own guns, and be told when I'm
about to blow my foot off, than have `make' desperately try to move my
foot out of the way while I fire at random.

> 
> Since you've got control over the grade names, you can make it as short as
> you like, as long as it has enough bits to encode all the possible grades.
> 
> > Also it would still be easy to shoot yourself
> > in the foot using libraries.  (Indeed, that bug which actually
> > bit me was using libraries...)
> 
> Assuming you put the suffix on .a and .so files too, and only put .o files
> with the right suffix into the the right libraries,, how could you shoot
> yourself in the foot using libraries? 

This is not a problem that make was designed to handle very easily.

Digital has a research build tool called Vesta that handles all this
sort of stuff automatically. In fact, it uniquely names all your files,
depending upon which options were used to create them.

-- 
       Tyson Dowd           #          Another great idea from the 
                            #            people who brought you
      trd at .cs.mu.oz.au      #               Beer Milkshakes!
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~trd #	         Confidence --- Red Dwarf