“multiple target patterns” Makefile error

Question

My makefile fails with error:

Makefile:34: *** multiple target patterns.  Stop.

What does it really mean, how can I fix this?

(GNU

Answer 1

I just want to add, if you get this error because you are using Cygwin make and auto-generated files, you can fix it with the following sed,

sed -e 's@\\\([^ ]\)@/\1@g' -e 's@[cC]:@/cygdrive/c@' -i filename.d

You may need to add more characters than just space to the escape list in the first substitution but you get the idea. The concept here is that /cygdrive/c is an alias for c: that cygwin's make will recognize.

And may as well throw in

-e 's@^ \+@\t@'

just in case you did start with spaces on accident (although I /think/ this will usually be a "missing separator" error).