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From: Bill Fenner <fenner@parc.xerox.com>
To: chuckr@glue.umd.edu, ports@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: setting a var
Message-Id: <97Aug16.174138pdt.177513@crevenia.parc.xerox.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 17:41:33 PDT
Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
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>I have a port nearly ready, of a2ps.

Is this different than print/a2ps?

>One thing ... I tried doing PAPERSIZE!= cat $(WRKDIR)/.media ... it says
>work/.media: not found.  Like it's trying to execute the file.

I tried that and it worked fine.  I'd suggest surrounding it by ".if exists"
so that you don't get errors when it doesn't exist -- if I do:

PAPERSIZE!=       cat /tmp/.media

all:
        @echo ${PAPERSIZE}

% make
cat: /tmp/.media: No such file or directory
"Makefile", line 1: warning: Couldn't read shell's output
"Makefile", line 1: warning: "cat /tmp/.media" returned non-zero

but

.if exists(/tmp/.media)
PAPERSIZE!=       cat /tmp/.media
.endif

all:
        @echo ${PAPERSIZE}

does:

hub% make PAPERSIZE=booga
booga
hub% echo fooga > /tmp/.media
hub% make PAPERSIZE=booga
booga
hub% make
fooga

(watch out for that last one -- it says that the user can override your
file on the make command line...)

  Bill