Compilation on Windows (PowerShell)

[jgranduel]

Last thing I noticed! Not the most important thing, but can be surprising!

I compiled your project on a Windows machine on a PowerShell console.
As PowerShell has aliased rm (rm -> Remove-Item), rm -rf doesn't work, but rm -r does.
So in Makefile, the default was broken:

cleanup:
	rm -rf bin
	rm -f src/ws4sqlite

and using rm.exe was required (or I could have unalias rm).

My question is : is force -f parameter (rm -rf) necessary in some cicumstances? if not, could it be removed?
Thanks!

[proofrock]

To tell the truth, I don't use the makefile in Windows, I'm surprised it works even a little bit 😂 Anyway, the -f is there to avoid failing if the file is not found... I could substitute with -r -f or || <some noop command> at the end of the command. Would they work in PS?

[jgranduel]

AFAIK, rm -r -f doesn't work on PowerShell. Here's the message:

>rm -r -f a_dir/
Remove-Item: Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name 'f' is ambiguous. Possible matches include: -Filter -Force.`

[proofrock]

And || doesn't work, either... mmmh... which make commands do you want to use? I'll do a -powershell version of them.

[jgranduel]

Sorry, I was out of the office. Thanks for your replies.
I don't want any command in peculiar! is rm -r enough on Linux/Mac? if -f is not needed, the Makefile would be more portable without using it (I don't use make by myself, so I only guess it would be).

[proofrock]

here is the solution, I didn't know this, last I used make was in 2001 😅. Will do in the next release.

[proofrock]

@jgranduel Would you mind to try? I don't have powershell ready. The change is here or you can find it in the develop branch. Thanks a lot!

[jgranduel]

Sorry it doesn't work in PowerShell. I understand that -f is required at first compilation as bin folder doesn't exist yet. But this behaviour is not exactly replicated into PowerShell. And -f is ambiguous, so the bare minimum would be rm -f -fo (-fo for -force). (see powershell-command-rm-rf). I don't know Makefile for being able to find a portable way to deal with the 'removal' of non existent folder...

[proofrock]

Did you try the modified version? I removed the -f, and with a '-' at the beginning of the command, make doesn't fail on errors. It's in develop branch. Or tell me how to provide it to you.

[jgranduel]

Hi,
I think I used the right 'develop' branch containing

cleanup:
	- rm -r bin
	- rm src/ws4sqlite

Here are the different behaviour on my Windows laptop (folder bin doesn't exist), rm is the alias of Remove-Item, rm.exe is this version git\2.34.1.windows.1\usr\bin\rm.exe installed with scoop.

PowerShell> rm -r bin
Remove-Item: Cannot find path 'C:\git\ws4sqlite\bin' because it does not exist.
> rm.exe -r bin
/usr/bin/rm: cannot remove 'foo': No such file or directory
#235 PS7 C:\git\ws4sqlite> rm.exe -rf bin # No error !

I conclude that -f is required for silently removing a non yet real folder at first cleanup.