Hello Paul On 26 April 2011 13:34, Paul Smith <psm...@gnu.org> wrote: > On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 13:31 +0100, Jon Grant wrote: >> I noticed that the "all:" target must be at the top of a makefile, >> unless explicitly built by "make all". Is this expected? It seems >> quite limiting.. > > There is nothing special about the "all" target. That's just a > convention that many, but not all, makefile authors use. Make itself > doesn't treat the "all" target, if it exists, in any special way. > > The GNU make manual says: > >> The order of rules is not significant, except for determining the >> "default goal": the target for `make' to consider, if you do not >> otherwise specify one. The default goal is the target of the first >> rule in the first makefile.
Thank you for this. Could the text be updated to confirm that "the target all: does not need to be the default target, this is a convention that many, but not all, makefile authors use. Make itself does not treat the "all" target, if it exists in a special way." I could not find a mention of the "all" target in manual sections. Perhaps it could even be mentioned in this chapter that "all" is not a special target: http://www.gnu.org/s/hello/manual/make/Special-Targets.html Best regards, Jon _______________________________________________ Bug-make mailing list Bug-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
