In the manual it says: "Within a @code{define} directive, comments are not ignored during the definition of the variable, but rather kept intact in the value of the variable. When the variable is expanded they will either be treated as @code{make} comments or as recipe text, depending on the context in which the variable is evaluated."
But take the following example: define var 1 2 3 #something endef $(info $$var is [${var}]) $(var): echo target from a variable It's possible to call \#something target: $ make \#something $var is [1 2 3 #something] echo target from a variable target from a variable $(var) is not a _recipe text_ so according to the manual it should be treated as a comment like that: 1 2 3 #something: echo target from a variable which should result in $ make \#something $var is [1 2 3 #something] Makefile:7: *** missing separator. Stop. right? Is this an oversight in the manual? -- Arkadiusz Drabczyk <arkadi...@drabczyk.org>