bug: make help does not work
Metadata
Current evaluation
Fixed in merged PR #542 (commit 3754b6a), making the root make help target portable across /bin/sh implementations.
Resolution: closed resolved
Reason: PR #542 hardened the help target against shell-specific quoting and parsing behavior, resolving failures under non-dash /bin/sh environments. It was merged as commit 3754b6a.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
```
snapcraft % make help
Target | Description
printf "\e[2m%-30s + %-41s\e[0m\n" "------------------------------" "------------------------------------------------"
------------------------------ + ------------------------------------------------
egrep '^[^:]+\: [^#]*##' $(echo Makefile common.mk | tac --separator=' ') | sed -e 's/^[^:]*://' -e 's/:[^#]*/ /' | sort -V| awk -F '[: ]*' \
'{
/bin/sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `''
/bin/sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file
make: *** [help] Error 2
```
It does work in the docs directory, jfyi
```
docs % make help
-------------------------------------------------------------
* watch, build and serve the documentation: make run
* only build: make html
* only serve: make serve
* clean built doc files: make clean-doc
* clean full environment: make clean
* check links: make linkcheck
* check markdown: make lint-md
* check spelling: make spelling
* check spelling (without building again): make spellcheck
* check inclusive language: make woke
* check accessibility: make pa11y
* check style guide compliance: make vale
* check style guide compliance on target: make vale TARGET=*
* other possible targets: make <TAB twice>
-------------------------------------------------------------
```
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed in merged PR #542 (commit 3754b6a), making the root make help target portable across /bin/sh implementations. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed by merged PR #542 (commit 3754b6a), making the root make help target portable across /bin/sh implementations. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | The make help target failed due to a shell syntax error in the root Makefile. The issue was closed after PR #542 was merged, resolving the shell compatibility problem for non-dash environments. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Fixed via merged pull request #542. The update corrects a shell syntax error in the root Makefile that caused make help to fail, ensuring compatibility across different /bin/sh implementations. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 | — | — | make help failed due to a shell syntax error. The issue was closed after PR #542 was merged to fix shell compatibility, resolving the unexpected EOF error. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Likely Fixed By:
canonical/starbase#542
(confidence 100%)
Merged PR explicitly fixes issue #538 by making make help shell-portable.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #542 fix: harden 'make help' for shell portability | starbase | merged | Merged PR #542 as commit 3754b6a, hardening common.mk's help target for shell portability and fixing #538. |