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Features of GNU make

Here is a summary of the features of GNU make, for comparison with and credit to other versions of make. We consider the features of make in 4.2 BSD systems as a baseline. If you are concerned with writing portable makefiles, you should use only the features of make not listed here or in section Incompatibilities and Missing Features.

Many features come from the version of make in System V.

The following features were inspired by various other versions of make. In some cases it is unclear exactly which versions inspired which others.

The remaining features are inventions new in GNU make:

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