RFR: 8301197: Make sure use of printf is correct and actually needed

[Mikael Vidstedt]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2025 13:36:16 GMT, Magnus Ihse Bursie <ihse at openjdk.org> wrote:

> We have been sloppy in our use of `printf` in make code. Most of the time, we should really use `echo` instead. If we do need to use `printf`, we should never inline make or shell variables into the formatting string, since they may contain `%` which will be interpreted as formatting. Instead, we should always use `%s` and pass the variable as an argument to `printf`.
> 
> I've checked the entire code base for usages of $PRINTF, and converted most of them to $ECHO, and made sure the remaining ones are correct. I also discovered some additional ugly stuff in relation to this, which I fixed.

make/Docs.gmk line 267:

> 265: 	$$(call LogInfo, Creating overview.html for $1)
> 266: 	$$(call MakeDir, $$(@D))
> 267: 	$$(PRINTF) "%s" '$$($1_OVERVIEW_TEXT)' > $$@

For my education, why isn't this just `$$(ECHO) '$$($1_OVERVIEW_TEXT)' > $$@` ?

make/Init.gmk line 163:

> 161: 	            $(PARALLEL_TARGETS) $(COMPARE_BUILD_MAKE) $(BUILD_LOG_PIPE) || \
> 162: 	        ( exitcode=$$? && \
> 163: 	        $(ECHO) "" $(BUILD_LOG_PIPE_SIMPLE) && \

Just for my understanding, is the empty string needed, or "just" a stylistic choice?

make/autoconf/help.m4 line 295:

> 293:   $ECHO "* HS debug level: $HOTSPOT_DEBUG_LEVEL"
> 294:   $ECHO "* JVM variants:   $JVM_VARIANTS"
> 295:   $ECHO "* JVM features:   "

I believe this will now add a newline where there was none earlier, so the actual features will show up on a new line?

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PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/24415#discussion_r2027670453
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/24415#discussion_r2027674403
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/24415#discussion_r2027700449