Re: (b)make: Outputting a huge variable value

[Roland Illig <roland.illig%gmx.de@localhost>]

17.05.2024 15:50:06 Edgar Fuß <ef%math.uni-bonn.de@localhost>:
>> main: .PHONY
>>     make -V X | wc -c
> Wow, I didn't know that worked.
> 
> How on earth /does/ it work? If a command happens to be "make", make just
> forks without the child process exec()ing anything, so all the make variables
> etc. are inherited?

No, that would be too much magic. While there is some magic that is activated whenever the command contains the string "make" or "${MAKE}", it doesn't go this far.

What happens here is that the child "make -V" reads the complete Makefile again, and after that, it prints the variable value. So no magic, just a bit of duplicate effort.