[cs631apue] HW5 questions

[Jan Schaumann]

Rob Hoffmann <rhoffman at stevens.edu> wrote:

> I have a different question. Is there an existing inherent meaning to  
> the command "make patch"? To clarify, I have in my Makefile the rule:
>
> patch:
> <patch command>
>
> When I run "make patch", I receive the following message:
>
> make: `patch' is up to date.

Hah, that's because you have a file called 'patch' in the current
working directory.  Any target implicitly translates into a file (if it
exists), so make checks the timestamp on that file and finds it 'up to
date'.

There are ways around that, but you can also choose to either rename the
target or the filename.  Either way is fine.

-Jan