Re: Re: disparity in Paul’s Rules

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:42:45 -0800
> From: Philip Guenther <address@hidden>
> Cc: bug-make <address@hidden>
> 
> > The BB line is prefixed with a tab and is not continued. With the
> > comment character in place it provides a ‘recipe commences before
> > first target. Stop.’ error but with the # removed it’s treated as a
> > valid variable assignment despite the leading tab:
> ...
> > So maybe Rule 5 needs a wording update?
> 
> I would call that a bug in make.

It's a deliberate "feature", I think.  AFAIR, X makefiles use a style
where non-recipe lines begin with a TAB.  So GNU Make cannot disallow
such usage (which I do agree is unportable).