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3.1 Symbolic Constants

In EBuild a symbolic constant is a string bound to a name. Those symbols can be used in rules and actions. The string of a symbol will be inserted wherever the symbol is found. Example:

options=IGNORECACHE LINEDEBUG DEBUG 
test:   test.e 
        ec test.e $(options) 
        ==> ec test.e IGNORECACHE LINEDEBUG DEBUG  

The following example shows how to use constants in rules:

testfile=bla 
$(testfile):    $(testfile).e 
                ec $(testfile).e 

There are two special symbols in EBuild. The first, target, holds the name of the target the current action belongs to. dep gets the name of the first dependancy of the current target.

All except these two preset symbols may be used in rules as well as in actions. target and dep, however, may only be used in actions. It's safe to have it in rules, EBuild just aborts with a message that tells you that it doesn't know this symbol.


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