New feature wish list

[Stephen Huntley]

I've been using gnu make heavily lately, and I like it very much, but there
are some functions I'd like to see to make my life easier.  Perhaps there are
hidden make features that could accomplish what I want, in which case a
response would be appreciated.  Otherwise, I post this in hopes the maintainer
may be reading.

1.  Forward slashes on Windows.

I like that gnu make has so many cross-platform capabilities, but the fact
that on Windows the automatic variables always deliver pathnames with
backslashes even when using sh.exe is a major pain.  My rules are littered
with expressions like $(subst \,/,$<).  I'd like an option that causes
automatic variables to deliver forward slashes on Windows if sh.exe is being
used as the shell.

2.  Comand-line options expressible in makefiles.

I'd like to be able to express most command-line options using directives in a
makefile or config file, thus keeping the actual command line as short as
possible.  As projects grow larger, command line length limits in shells
become more of a concern.  I'd also like to control, save and reproduce my
option sets more reliably and cleanly by including them in the makefile,
rather than track them in a separate launch script.  For example, the include
directive allows me to source additional makefiles as an alternative to the
--include-dir command-line option.  I'd like to see an analog of the include
directive for the --touch and --what-if options, so if I wanted to, I could
specify a large number of files.

Thanks,
Steve Huntley