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From: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>
To: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@shutemov.name>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] x86/build change for v3.6
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:15:11 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20120725201511.GA888@merkur.ravnborg.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20120722142204.GA9085@gmail.com>

> 
> No, the reason for the odd looking diff is that lots of lines in 
> arch/x86/Makefile have 8-space tabs for histerical reasons but 
> new code (such as this one) has proper tabs.

Use of tabs for indent in a Makefile is just asking for trouble.
Consider following simple Makefile:

$ cat Makefile
bar:
#bla bla
        foo = war

love:
	@echo make love, not $(foo)



If you execute:
    $make love
    make love, not war

But if you replace the 8 spaces in front of the assignment
with a tab then suddenly the output looks like this:
    $make love
    make love, not

This is not as expected....
In this silly example it is maybe obvious but I have lost hours tracking
down bugs due to this.
You add a new target and suddenly someting unrelated breaks.

What happens is that make consider the assignment a command due to the leading
tab - and because is follows a target (or other commands).

I hope this makes it clear why many makefiles in the kernel uses tabs for indent.

	Sam

  parent reply	other threads:[~2012-07-25 20:15 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-07-22 13:44 [GIT PULL] x86/build change for v3.6 Ingo Molnar
2012-07-22 13:58 ` Kirill A. Shutemov
2012-07-22 14:22   ` Ingo Molnar
2012-07-23  9:35     ` Kirill A. Shutemov
2012-07-25 20:15     ` Sam Ravnborg [this message]
2012-07-25 20:18       ` H. Peter Anvin
2012-07-26  6:55       ` Ingo Molnar
2012-07-29 20:42         ` Sam Ravnborg

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