Placing .OBJ File in Program List Gives Unexpected Result

MS-DOS    | OS/2

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Programmer's Workbench for MS-DOS, versions 1.0 and 1.1
• Microsoft Programmer's Workbench for OS/2, versions 1.0 and 1.1

When creating a program list for a project in the Programmer's WorkBench (PWB) version 1.0 or 1.1, including an .OBJ file as one of the modules in the list may give different results than expected. Due to the way NMAKE actually builds a project, if there are any default inference rules that can be used to build the .OBJ, NMAKE will execute the default commands.

For example, assume you have a project that requires an .OBJ called FILE1.OBJ. If, in the same directory, there is a newer source file with the same base name (FILE1) and the file extension is one of those included in the .SUFFIXES list (for example, FILE1.ASM, FILE1.BAS, FILE1.C, FILE1.CBL, FILE1.FOR, or FILE1.PAS), NMAKE will try to invoke the appropriate compiler or assembler to rebuild FILE1.OBJ.

To work around this situation, copy the .OBJ file in question to some directory where the default inference rules will not be invoked, such as the directory where you have your libraries. If this is unacceptable, you can choose NMAKE Options from the Options menu and specify the /R switch to NMAKE. This will turn off all default inference rules for the project.