Description - Mks.com

is a between-rules circular dependency. make detects a between-rule circular dependency when it
is processing the dependency tree built during the parse phase.
Normally make only detects circular dependencies for those targets actually being built. When a
circular dependency is encountered, make issues a warning message, removes the offending
prerequisite from the list, and continues parsing the makefile. The .CYCLECHECK special target
can be used to alter make's treatment of circular dependencies. For details, see the Special Target
Directives section of this reference page.
Recipes
You can use a target that has prerequisites but no recipes to add the given prerequisites to that
target's list of prerequisites.
You may preface any recipe line with a command prefix immediately following the character
(-, @, + or all three). - indicates that make is to ignore non-zero exit values when it executes this
recipe line. @ indicates that make is not to display the recipe line before executing it. + tells make to
always execute this line, even when -n, -q, or -t is specified.
Group recipes begin with [ in the first non-white space position of a line, and end with ] in the first
non-white space position of a line. Recipe lines in a group recipe need not have a leading tab.
make executes a group recipe by feeding it as a single unit to a shell. If you immediately follow the
[ at the beginning of a group recipe with one of -, @ or +, they apply to the entire group in the
same way that they apply to single recipe lines.
Inference Rules
With inference rules, you can specify general rules for building files rather than creating a specific
rule for each target.
MKS Make provides two forms of inference rules: suffix rules and meta-rules. MKS Make includes
suffix rules to ensure compatibility with older makefiles. Meta-rules, however, provide a more
general mechanism for specifying make's default behavior. They provide a superset of the
functionality of suffix rules. make searches all meta-rules before using suffix rules.
make uses the inference rules to infer how it can bring a target up to date. A list of inference rules
defines the commands to be executed. The default startup.mk contains a set of inference rules
for the most common targets. You can specify additional rules in the makefile.
When make finds no explicit target rule to update a target, it checks the inference rules. If make
finds an applicable inference rule with an out-of-date prerequisite, it executes that rule's recipe.
(See also the section describing the .DEFAULT special target).
Meta-rules
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