Henrik Carlqvist wrote: > > Consider this makefile: > > > > .PHONY: a b > > a:; @echo a > > b:; @echo b > > b: | a > > Your problem with this Makefile is that it never creates any files a or b.
That's why I made them phony. But that was just for demonstration. I get the same effects with this makefile (when a and b don't exist before): a:; touch a b:; touch b b: | a except for "'a' is up to date." instead of "Nothing to be done for 'a'.". > > If so, is there another way to achieve what I want? > > This totally depends upon what you want. As I said, a way to specify in which order recipes are invoked (here, a before b) if they are invoked, without influencing whether they are invoked (only a, only b or a and b, as given on the command line).