ar speed: sixfold improvement [PATCH]

[Roland McGrath]

> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:16:04 -0400, Roland McGrath wrote:
> >I thought you were going to use simple variable refs in the o-iterator-doit
> >rule commands, to ease readability.
> 
> It didn't work; the automatic variables came out null unless I used $$
> escaping.  Since we seem stuck with $$ escapes I figured it was easier
> to read if the rules were right there with the dependencies.

Are you sure you know what I meant and did it right?

I mean where you now have `.. $$(foo) ... blah blah' (multiple lines of
hairy commands), instead you put `$$(ar-commands)' and then do:

define ar-commands
... $(foo) ...
blah blah $(bar) ...
endef

Then the commands can be separate command lines too instead of one big
backslashed splat, if that's desireable.