> On 8 Sep 2022, at 04:00, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> 
>>> Anyway, I think it would be useful for each make run to output, for
>>> debugging, each actual command.  It could show each of the usual
>>> commands once, or (if it isn't hard) only the usual commands that were
>>> actually executed.  To show, for instance, what this expands into:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> at least if the .c.o rule is ever used.
> 
>> I think this is rarely needed, so having it silent by default is
>> better.
> 
> We may be miscommunicating.  My idea is that each make run that runs
> the command
> 
> 	$(AM_V_CC)$(CC) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(ALL_CFLAGS) $(PROFILING_CFLAGS)
> 
> at least once, should output _just once_ what that expands into.
> 
> I agree we do not want to output the expansion more than once.

Note that CFLAGS can (I don't speak for whether they do in Emacs)
vary per file, target, directory, ...

As for CC, I think you could read configure output if you're particularly
interested in that.

I think if you do want this, the best place to recommend it would be
the automake mailing lists. Emacs will become harder to maintain
if it develops quirks like this, and it'll be confusing to outsiders
who are familiar with automake to see such an odd construct.

> 
>> The way to see the arguments is to say
> 
>>  make V=1
> 
> The problem with that solution is that by October I certainly won't
> remember it.

You could put it in an alias or MAKEOPTS or something,
although it may not work with some homebrew Makefiles
(projects other than Emacs, not using autotools).

Best,
sam