make files

[Gerald Combs]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Persky, Ken wrote:

> hey,
> I am new to the area and will be attending my first lug meeting on 2/7.  I
> belonged to smluc(southwest Missouri Linux users group) in Springfield, MO
> for awhile but I am still fairly new to Linux.   Somehow I got voted to be
> the one to maintain an AIX box at work and I have never worked w/ AIX
> before, so I was hoping someone could help w/ a problem I have run into.  
> I am trying to compile VNC and the make file is reporting an error that
> says, "missing separator".  I have no idea what this means.  If anyone could
> shed some light I would really appreciate it.
> Thanks

It sounds like your Makefile may have spaces instead of tabs before one or
more commands.  Most makefile entries have the following form:

<target>: <dependencies>
	<commands>

e.g.

hello: hello.c
	gcc -o hello hello.c

The example above compiles 'hello' whenever it doesn't exist, or when
'hello.c' has a newer timestamp.  Most versions of make expect to see tabs
in front of the command lines, and will produce errors if there are
spaces.

Makefiles are often automatically generated, e.g. using the GNU autoconf
package.  Sometimes the makefile generators put spaces where they're not
wanted.

BTW, what version of AIX are you running?  The Bull archive has an
installable VNC package for 4.3.2 and later at
http://www-frec.bull.com/cgi-bin/list_dir.cgi/download/aix432/ .

> 
> Ken Persky
> 
> 
> 
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