CODEWITHSUNDEEP
makefilegnu-make
mhucka
mhucka

Reputation: 2399

Makefile recipe that works when target file base name is different from prerequisite file?

I have a Makefile in which a couple of targets need to be made the same way, but one of the targets is a file whose basename is different from its prerequisite. Here is a minimal example:

ABOUT.html: README.md
help.html: help.md

%.html: %.md
    pandoc --standalone --quiet -f gfm -H $(github-css) -o tmp.html $<
    inliner -n < tmp.html > $@
    rm -f tmp.html

With this Makefile, help.html gets made but ABOUT.html is never made. The reason, I presume, is because the base file name for %.html and %.md don't match up in the case of ABOUT.html because that target depends on README.md.

Is there a way to make this work without having to make a separate recipe for ABOUT.html?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 267

Answers (1)

Maxim Egorushkin
Maxim Egorushkin

Reputation: 136286

One option is to create ABOUT.md symlink, so that your pattern rule works, by adding the following rule:

ABOUT.md : README.md
    ln -s ${<F} ${@F}

You may like to avoid using the same temporary file in the recipe because that breaks in parallel builds. A better way is to use a unique temporary file for the target based on the target name:

%.html: %.md
    pandoc --standalone --quiet -f gfm -H $(github-css) -o $@~ $<
    inliner -n < $@~ > $@
    rm -f $@~

Upvotes: 1

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