Subject: Re: make should unset $ENV
To: None <>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: tech-toolchain
Date: 08/01/2003 20:41:18
>> How far down the road of giving make-executed commands a `standard'
>> environment instead of the user's environment do you want to go?
> Quite a long way ;-)

>> For example, are you going to unset $PATH too?  This is not a
>> rhetorical device; I really don't see why you would unset ENV but
>> not PATH.
> Well in my builds at work all trees are built in a "sandbox" that
> does just that.

This is fine.  For the purpose you describe, you want a completely
controlled environment.

If that were the only sort of use make were ever put to, your change
would be fine.  But it's not.  When building large projects, like
NetBSD or whatever you're referring to as "at work", yes, you will want
to unset ENV (or set it to point to a file whose contents are
considered part of the build environment).  But because make is used
for other things as well, the place to do that is the wrapper scripts
that provide the controlled environment, not in make itself.

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