From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751409AbbJCEih (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Oct 2015 00:38:37 -0400 Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([198.137.202.9]:41439 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750733AbbJCEif (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Oct 2015 00:38:35 -0400 Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2015 21:38:08 -0700 From: Darren Hart To: Mathieu Desnoyers Cc: Wang Long , shuahkh@osg.samsung.com, Michael Ellerman , keescook@chromium.org, davem@davemloft.net, luto@amacapital.net, wad@chromium.org, Andrew Morton , gorcunov@openvz.org, cov@codeaurora.org, bobby prani , tyler baker , Tim Bird , josh@joshtriplett.org, Andrea Arcangeli , andrej skvortzov , sjayaram@akamai.com, treding@nvidia.com, Ingo Molnar , naresh kamboju , alexey kodanev , linux-api , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, wanglong@laoqinren.net Subject: Re: [PATCH] kselftest: replace $(RM) with rm -f command Message-ID: <20151003043808.GA90454@vmdeb7> References: <20150925154415.GC38748@vmdeb7> <1443406217-137773-1-git-send-email-long.wanglong@huawei.com> <1201012824.5792.1443410213729.JavaMail.zimbra@efficios.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1201012824.5792.1443410213729.JavaMail.zimbra@efficios.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 03:16:53AM +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote: > ----- On Sep 27, 2015, at 10:10 PM, Wang Long long.wanglong@huawei.com wrote: > > > Some test's Makefile using "$(RM)" while the other's > > using "rm -f". It is better to use one of them in all > > tests. > > I agree that this disparity appears to be unwanted. We > should settle on one or the other. > > > > > "rm -f" is better, because it is less magic, and everyone > > konws what is does. > > "$(RM)" is clearly defined as a Makefile implicit variable > which defaults to "rm -f". > Ref. https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Implicit-Variables.html > > Leaving it as a variable is more flexible because then the > default behavior can be overridden if need be, which is > not the case of a hardcoded "rm -f". > > Following your line of argumentation, we should then > invoke "gcc" directly in every Makefile because it is > less magic than "$(CC)". This makes no sense. I don't think they can be compared so simply. Specifying a compiler is a common use case. Customizing the rm command is not, in my experience anyway, and like Michael, I would definately have to look up what RM means. That said, I care more about consistency than which is used. Both are valid, but $(RM), while more flexible, will cost more people time to look up what it does as it isn't commonly used than any benefit we're likely to see from its use. Meh. :-) -- Darren Hart Intel Open Source Technology Center