default target must be declared first which gives problems with !include

[peterhoeg]

just will default to the first target/recipe, so if default isn't the first, it's ignored:

$ cat justfile

a:
  echo 'AAA'

b:
  echo 'BBB'

default: b

$ just
echo 'AAA'
AAA

When combined with !include which has to come before anything, you will need to do the following:

!include default.just
!include some/other/file.just

And then set the default target in default.just in order to be able to define a default target.

[indigoviolet]

Justfiles are insensitive to order. You can do default: b before defining b

[peterhoeg]

Justfiles are insensitive to order. You can do default: b before defining b

Sure, but that’s not the problem. As outlined in my initial post. The problem is that “default” is ignored if it not the first target: ┌──── │ a: │ echo 'AAA' │ │ default: b │ │ b: │ echo 'BBB' └──── `just' will still show `AAA'. So as a consequence with `!include' files, you have to make a dummy external file to set the default target and make that the first line in the file as otherwise the first target of the first file will become the default target.

[neunenak]

I think the correct long-term solution is to remove the limitation on where !include directives can exist in a justfile, so that you can define a default recipe in a file and then have your includes come after it. This will require some changes to the parser and the internal representation of the justfile, but that seems like it's worth doing - this limitation is actually pretty annoying.

[peterhoeg]

There's really 2 issues here:

1. !include has to come first, and
2. default must be defined before any target

You could solve 2 without solving 1. Of course, ideally both get fixed! ;-)