What does VPATH do for make?

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <2642 at trantor.harris-atd.com> bbadger at x102c.harris-atd.com (Badger
BA 64810) writes:
>Does anyone know for sure what VPATH is for?  Do your man pages reveal all?

  Our man page for make(1) says:

     Another special macro is `VPATH'.  The `VPATH' macro should
     be set to a list of directories separated by colons.  When
     make searches for a file as a result of a dependency rela-
     tion, it will first search the current directory and then
     each of the directories on the `VPATH' list.  If the file is
     found, the actual path to the file will be used, rather than
     just the filename.  If `VPATH' is not defined, then only the
     current directory is searched.

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