What is the most reliable way of using GNUMake with filenames containing spaces?

Question

I want to use GNUMake to run a rule-based makefile which builds a set of C files in a directory structure (on a Windows file system).

The root directory, some sub-di

Answer 1

I've typically used what is sort of a combination of Dana the Sane's answer and Brian Yoder's answer.

You just use the $(subst) function to replace all occurances of spaces with escaped spaces. EG:

empty := 
space := $(empty) $(empty)
program_files := $(subst $(space),\$(space),$(ProgramFiles))

(Note that with some older versions of make on Windows you would also need to use another $(subst) to change path backslashes to slashes)