Adding a dependency to a class of targets in GNU make

Question

I have a naming convention that indicates that some executables depend on additional objects, e.g., targets of the form foo_test depend on foo_test.o and unit_tests.o. Is it possible to specify a general rule in GNU make to capture this convention?

I tried the obvious, but it seems to have no effect:

%_test: unit_tests.o

Answer 1

You need to use the pattern specifier (%) in both the target and one of its dependencies, and of course also specify the commands for the rule to make the target:

%_test: %_test.o unit_test.o
    cc -o $@ $?