Contents|Index|Previous|Next Writing the commands in rules The commands of a rule consist of shell command lines to be executed one by one. Each command line must start with a tab, except that the first command line may be attached to the target-and-dependencies line with a semicolon in between. Blank lines and lines of just comments may appear among the command lines; they are ignored. (But beware, an apparently “blank” line that begins with a tab is not blank! It is an empty command.) Users use many different shell programs, but commands in make-files are always interpreted by ‘/bin/sh’ unless the makefile specifies otherwise. The shell that is in use determines whether comments can be written on command lines, and what syntax they use. When the shell is ‘/bin/sh’, a ‘#’ starts a comment that extends to the end of the line. The ‘#’ does not have to be at the beginning of a line. Text on a line before a ‘#’ is not part of the comment. See the following documentation for more discussion. Command echoing Command execution Parallel execution Errors in commands Interrupting or killing make Recursive use of make How the MAKE variable works Communicating variables to a sub-make Communicating options to a sub-make The ‘--print-directory’ option Defining canned command sequences Using empty commands Top|Contents|Index|Previous|Next