Terminal setup when running make from Vim

Question

What exactly is Vim doing when executing the :make command?

I was expecting that it just executes the content of the makeprg variable just like running :!make and additionally collects the output, but apparently the behavior is different. For example the terminal size is set up differently.

For example create a makefile with the following content

check:
    echo asdf > foo.txt
    aspell -c foo.txt

Then compare the behavior of :make and :!make.

Is it different for you, too, or is this something strange with my setup?

Answer 1

From :h :make:

The ":make" command executes the command given with the 'makeprg' option.
This is done by passing the command to the shell given with the 'shell'
option.  This works almost like typing
        ":!{makeprg} [arguments] {shellpipe} {errorfile}".

{makeprg} is the string given with the 'makeprg' option.  Any command can be
used, not just "make".  …

[arguments] is anything that is typed after ":make".
{shellpipe} is the 'shellpipe' option.
{errorfile} is the 'makeef' option, with ## replaced to make it unique.

So, it's not exactly the same as just :!make. Following through, for shellpipe:

                                                'shellpipe' 'sp'
'shellpipe' 'sp'        string  (default ">", "| tee", "|& tee" or "2>&1| tee")
        …
        For Unix the default it "| tee".  The stdout of the compiler is saved
        in a file and echoed to the screen.  If the 'shell' option is "csh" or
        "tcsh" after initializations, the default becomes "|& tee".  If the
        'shell' option is "sh", "ksh", "mksh", "pdksh", "zsh" or "bash" the
        default becomes "2>&1| tee".

So, the actual command is more like:

:!make 2>&1 | tee bar

And, in fact, if you run:

aspell -c foo.txt 2>&1 | tee bar

You'll get the same behaviour.

So, this is perfectly normal behaviour.