makedepend => ["cc", "makedepend"],
dashmstdout => ["gcc"],
cpp => ["gcc"],
-# This is for older (pre-3.x) GCC versions. Newer versions
-# have depmode "gcc3".
+# This was for older (pre-3.x) GCC versions (newer versions
+# have depmode "gcc3"). But other compilers use this depmode
+# as well (for example, the IMB xlc/xlC compilers, and the HP
+# C compiler, see 'lib/depcomp' for more info), so it's not
+# obsolete, and it's worth giving it some coverage.
gcc => ["gcc"],
# This is for older (pre-7) msvc versions. Newer versions
# have depmodes "msvc7" and "msvc7msys".
;;
gcc)
+## Note that this doesn't just cater to obsosete pre-3.x GCC compilers.
+## but also to in-use compilers like IMB xlc/xlC and the HP C compiler.
+## (see the conditional assignment to $gccflag above).
## There are various ways to get dependency output from gcc. Here's
## why we pick this rather obscure method:
## - Don't want to use -MD because we'd like the dependencies to end
## up in a subdir. Having to rename by hand is ugly.
## (We might end up doing this anyway to support other compilers.)
## - The DEPENDENCIES_OUTPUT environment variable makes gcc act like
-## -MM, not -M (despite what the docs say).
+## -MM, not -M (despite what the docs say). Also, it might not be
+## supported by the other compilers which use the 'gcc' depmode.
## - Using -M directly means running the compiler twice (even worse
## than renaming).
if test -z "$gccflag"; then