Makefile whitespace... a neophyte question.

[Michael Portuesi]

In article <76A4A8F2A29F002123 at NRCNET.NRC.CA>, SERRER at ODIN.NRC.CA
(Martin Serrer) writes:
||> wave: wave.o wagen.o
|>         ${CC} ${LDFLAGS} ${OBJS} -o $@ ${LIBS}
|> 
|>   If the whitespace before the ${CC} is a <tab>, everything is
|> fine. But try
|> using <spaces> and the following 'helpful' error appears...

Correct.  The line containing the commands to be executed if the
target needs to be rebuilt must begin with a tab, or else make will
barf.

|>   Was this an unfortunate choice of syntax back in pre-history and
|> is cast in
|> stone or can something be done about it.

It was an unfortunate choice of syntax back and pre-history and is
cast in stone.  Sorry.

|>I always thought that 'white space is
|> white space is white space'

To all civil language parsers, it is.

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