Make error: missing separator

Question

I am getting the following error running make:

Makefile:168: *** missing separator.  Stop.

What is causing this?

Answer 1

In my case, I was actually missing a tab in between ifeq and the command on the next line. No spaces were there to begin with.

ifeq ($(wildcard $DIR_FILE), )
cd $FOLDER; cp -f $DIR_FILE.tpl $DIR_FILE.xs;
endif

Should have been:

ifeq ($(wildcard $DIR_FILE), )
cd $FOLDER; cp -f $DIR_FILE.tpl $DIR_FILE.xs;
endif

Note the is an actual tab character