Make 52.1 is 3.81-7?

@ssolie

First, thanks for updating to the latest version available

Second, could it be that the version on OS4Depot is slightly outdated?
Gmake -v still shows 3.81-7 and the readme from the package
tells the same, although the readme on OS4Depot says its 52.1?

Third, a question if you don't mind?

I have a project which i port occasionally and it has grown
rather big. Now i heard on their IRC that, if nothing has
changed on some parts of the code, these parts SHOULD NOT
be built/linked all over again and (g)make OUGHT to be the
one to take care of that.

Is it?

I realized today, that i was still using 3.81 and immediately
switched to 3.81-7, does this version feature this
"rule out parts that don't need to be build" and thus speed
up the building process?

Thanks a lot for your great work and please keep on
Porting is so much fun when no errors show up

@Raziel
Yes I changed the versioning scheme. The Amiga OS version is 52.1 and the GNU version stays at 3.81.

Perhaps you should read some of the GNU Make Manual to understand the tool a bit better.

@ssolie

Thanks, that helped

It was also updated to 52.1 thru AmiUpdate, so i'm fine now

@Raziel

Quote:

Yes make (every version) has this ability but it depends on the way the makefile is written.
Also nowadays many people find it better to use "more clever" hacks to handle compilation dependencies than using the make builtin functions resulting in a non functionning feature (but you know that the way computer science is currently going : trash good old techniques/tools and replace it by completly new ones that should be better, but that finally reveal itself to be less efficient, less portable, heavier and that finnaly is not- or mal-functionning... )

@abalaban

Well, it works when i simply don't ./configure before, but
i had issues with this method:

1) sometimes such a build (not from the full source) were
showing strange, never before seen and unpredictable bugs
(those were hard to track too as it "looked" like a
regression in the code but wasn't)

2) sometimes (normally coming back after some days) the
changes in SVN were so many(?) that gmake refused to build
right away instead told me to configure as there were no
targets

I myself feel better having build from the full source
without errors (otherwise i can't be sure if i haven't
summoned one of those #1 bugs)

@Raziel

Okay, generally ./configure generate a config.h file that almost everytime is required by all other file to compile.
As a result regenerating config.h imply recompiling every file that depends on it hence your complete recompile each time.
I don't see why you should reconfigure each time, your machine setup did not change between them, I don't think this is the problem, I would rather point a needed regeneration of the makefile itself (because files were added, dependencies changed, etc.) but in "fair" makefiles this step should be automatic.