On Thursday 27 January 2011, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> Does 'make -n' create files (for any target)?
>
No, and I've updated the `yaccdry.test' testcase to also check for this
(see attached amended patch).

> How do you ensure in your patch that 'make distdir' does not create files?
>
Well, it does, but I don't see any problem with this.  It's perfectly normal
for 'make distdir' to create files in the build directory, no?  And anyway,
this behaviour was pre-existint with FreeBSD make, just in a much worser
form ('yacc' was used to recreate the files, instead of a simple "cp -p").

> How do you ensure in your patch that 'make clean' does not create files?
>
In fact, it does (good catch, BTW); see new testcase in the attached patch.
Yes, this is clearly a wart, but a minor one, and having it is IMHO a price
worth paying in order to have VPATH builds work on FreeBSD.

BTW, if you decide to get rid of said wart in a follow-up patch, that can
probably be done using the FreeBSD make special variable `.TARGETS' (akin
to GNU make's `MAKECMDGOALS').

Thanks,
  Stefano