Anyway, I see a well-know pattern: if a file does not exist or is older than another, do something. Isn't it the basic job for a makefile rule ? So you may make a rule where xversion.h depends on all the sources, and the job is done.Tell me the rule, please!
You mean something like this: xversion.h: $(SRCFILES) xv.sh $@ $? and xv.sh: D=`date -r $2 "+%b %e %Y %H:%M"` echo \#define BDATETIME \"$D\" >$1 Maybe it's better, I'll test this. -- Helmut Karlowski