Some Notes on an Ancient Tool—Polymake

This document is carried over from when the server library makefiles were implemented in PolyMake and is informative only. In fact, the file reference macros are common to all make grammars.

As a aide to macros that, despite the richness of the Continuus environment, are desirable enhancements to ObjectMake, the following list is annotated with “*** ObjectMake ***”—the other macros being irrelevant to the Continuus environment. These other macros mostly deal with file system access and are not needed because Continuus has full, useful knowledge and understanding of directory relationships, plus, every last file or object can be understood by it.

File reference macros

	$@    the name (of the target file)
	$*    the name less its extension (but keeps its path)
	$<    the name (of the source file) from which the target file is built
	$?    the list of all names modified more recently that the target file
	$**   the list of all names regardless of timestamp
	$()   the null string

String transformation macros

$[f,<path>,<rootlist>,<ext>]               *** ObjectMake ***

—constructs a complete filename including path and extension from the list of file name radicals in rootlist. Thus, where PATHS and OBJS are defined as:

	PATH =	C:\BIN
	OBJS =	x.obj y.obj z.obj

then...

	target:	$[f,$(PATH),$(OBJS),.c]

becomes...

	target:	C:\BIN\x.c C:\BIN\y.c C:\BIN\z.c

$[m,<pattern>,<string-list>]               *** ObjectMake ***

—searches string-list for filenames matching pattern and replaces the macro with the list of names which match that pattern. Thus, where FILES is defined as:

	FILES =	x.c y.h z.h a.c b.h

then...

	target:	$[m,*.c,$(FILES)]

becomes...

	target:	x.c a.c

$[r,<string>]                              *** ObjectMake ***

—extracts the filename radical from string. Thus, where FILE is defined as:

	FILE =	C:\BIN\poop.c

then...

	target:	$[r,$(FILE)]

becomes...

	target:	poop

$[w,<file-specification>]

—creates a list of all the files in the current working directory that match file-specification. Thus, if the current directory is

	Volume in drive K is SYS         
	Directory of  k:\clib\pin\ansic\intel\src\*.*

	DOC          <DIR>     10-13-93  14:08 
	MAK          <DIR>     10-22-93   9:40 
	ansic.c          2110   9-29-93  16:23 
	ansicrpc.def       84  10-04-93  18:25 
	assert.c         1488   9-29-93  16:21 
	assert.def        407   9-13-93  14:56 
	bits.h           1494   9-28-93  15:24 
	buf.c            2237   9-30-93  14:57 
	changes          2679  10-04-93  15:38 
	cleanobj.bat       42   8-17-93  15:22 
	clib.imp          852  10-04-93  18:28 
	ctype.c          2895   9-29-93  16:21 
	libhooks.h       2359   9-30-93  17:11 
	makefile         2743   9-13-93  16:27 
	prelude.c        1635   9-29-93  16:21 
	rules.mak        2033  10-22-93  10:13 
	setbuf.c         1254  10-04-93  18:27 
	strcpy.c         1119   9-29-93  16:22 
	string.def       1924   9-21-93   8:13 
	     27,355 bytes in 18 file(s)
	1,171,324,928 bytes free

then...

	target:	$[w,*.c]

becomes...

	target:	ansic.c assert.c bug.c ctype.c prelude.c setbuf.c strcpy.c

$[@,<file-specification>]                  *** ObjectMake ***

—is replaced by a space-delimited list consisting of the contents of the file named by file-specification. Thus, if file ‘sources’ in the local directory contains the following:

	ansic.c
	assert.c
	bits.h
	bug.c
	ctype.c
	libhooks.h
	prelude.c
	setbuf.c
	strcpy.c

then...

	INCLUDES =	$[m,*.h,$[@,sources]]

becomes...

	INCLUDES =	bits.h libhooks.h