[mercury-users] DateStamps and Targets

[Nancy Mazur]

* Noel  Pinto <cool4life at rediffmail.com> [2002-10-15 15:35]:
> Hi,
> 
> I want to know what is the difference between time stamps and date 
> stamps. I know date stamps are '.date', '.date0', '.date3', 
> '.optdate' and 'trans_opt_date' files associated with the module 
> but I do not know what are time stamps.

the moment a file is created or changed, the time associated to it is
recorded by your OS. That's the timestamp used by mmake (and gmake on
which it depend) to figure out which files need to be recompiled etc.. 

> Targets are 'main-module.depend', 'main-module.ints' and more. I 
> want to know what is MAIN_TARGET in respect with other targets. I 
> really cannot figure why is it needed?? and also how is it 
> used??

I guess you are talking from the context of the content of a Mmakefile. 
The structure of these Mmakefiles is exactly equivalent to the structure
of the Makefiles used by gmake or make. You can find out more about it
in the documentation of those programs. 

Now for your usage here, MAIN_TARGET should simply be the dummy name of 
the first target mentioned in your Mmakefile. 

Stating 

MAIN_TARGET = mainfile

in your Mmakefile saves you some typework: 

instead of having to write 

mmake mainfile

you can then simply write

mmake

Good luck!
Nancy

PS: in my above answer I only "guessed" that you are talking about Mmake
and the accompanying Mmakefile. If you expect valuable feedback, please
provide those kind of details so that we can be sure to talk about the
same thing. 
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