Subject: Re: bug#20733: coreutils build problem

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 15:10:32 -0700

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> -man/test.1:      src/[$(EXEEXT)
> +LBRACKET = [
> +man/test.1:      src/$(LBRACKET)$(EXEEXT)

I'm afraid that doesn't work, no.  For example, with this Makefile:

LBRACKET = [
a: b/$(LBRACKET)
         echo a b/$(LBRACKET)

On AIX a plain 'make' will output:

         echo a b/[
a b/[

whereas 'make LBRACKET=x' will fail with:

make: 1254-002 Cannot find a rule to create target b/x from dependencies.
Stop.