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Why do all makefiles start with a tab?
The problem with Dennis’s Makefile is that when he added the comment line, he inadvertently inserted a space before the tab character at the beginning of line 2. The tab character is a very important part of the syntax of Makefiles. All command lines (the lines beginning with cc in our example) must start with tabs.
Can you make valid makefiles without tab characters?
In the time since this question was originally asked, a version of GNU Make has been released that allows you to use something other than Tab as the prefix character. From the mailing list announcement: New special variable: .RECIPEPREFIX allows you to reset the recipe introduction character from the default (TAB) to something else.
What does a latex foo.dtx file do?
A ‘classical’ (~LaTeX2.09) .dtx file contained the source and documentation for (usually) a LaTeX package, but not the instructions to extract the package from the source or to typeset the documentation. As such, latex foo.dtx would not result in useful output.
How to change the tab character in a recipe?
New special variable: .RECIPEPREFIX allows you to reset the recipe introduction character from the default (TAB) to something else. The first character of this variable value is the new recipe introduction character. If the variable is set to the empty string, TAB is used again.
How to insert tabs in a makefile in Vim?
Spread the good word! If you are using EditorConfig, you can add the following lines to your .editorconfig file to force your IDE to use tab for indentation instead of spaces in Makefile: In vim’s insert mode, one can use Ctrl-v to insert a literal tab, even if you have set the tab key to insert spaces.
Can a recipe be made without tab characters?
The first character of this variable value is the new recipe introduction character. If the variable is set to the empty string, TAB is used again. It can be set and reset at will; recipes will use the value active when they were first parsed. To detect this feature check the value of $ (.RECIPEPREFIX).