Greets, We have an automake file that, after includes are processed out, looks something like this:
# -*- makefile-gmake -*- CLEANFILES = BUILT_SOURCES = CLEANFILES += \ $(addprefix log/, $(addsuffix .log, $(notdir $(TESTS) _timing))) \ $(wildcard scratch/*) \ # CLEANFILES += \ $(BUILT_SOURCES) \ $(OBLONG_pcifiles) \ # CLEANFILES += \ $(man_MANS) \ $(htmlman_DATA) \ pod2htmi.tmp \ pod2htmd.tmp CLEANFILES += if HAVE_FOO GOBJECTS = $(SOURCES:%.scm=%.go) CLEANFILES += $(GOBJECTS) endif SOURCES = SOURCES += plasma.scm BUILT_SOURCES += env CLEANFILES += env In the generated Makefile, there is an extraneous backslash: CLEANFILES = $(addprefix log/, $(addsuffix .log, $(notdir $(TESTS) \ _timing))) $(wildcard scratch/*) $(BUILT_SOURCES) \ $(OBLONG_pcifiles) $(man_MANS) $(htmlman_DATA) pod2htmi.tmp \ pod2htmd.tmp\ $(am__append_3) env ^ it's here Regardless of the taste of that snippet above ;-), that snippet should be sufficient to reproduce this error, with --foreign and the following configure.ac: AC_INIT(foo, 0.1) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile]) AM_CONDITIONAL(HAVE_FOO, 1) AC_OUTPUT Thanks, Andy