Merging rules

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Dear all,

Assume the following fragment of a Makefile

%.$(O): %.c
        $(CC) ...

%.pic.$(O): %.c
        $(CC) ...

%.p.$(O): %.c
        $(CC) ...

%.i.$(O): %.c
        $(CC) ...

%.d.$(O): %.c
        $(CC) ...

That is, these rules build different types of object files from C
sources.

Until recently the commands in these rules were different but now,
thanks to target-specific variables, I managed to make all the commands
in these rule look exactly the same.

I am now wondering: is there a way to "merge" all these rules in just
one generic rule?

I assume if I write something like

%.$(O) %.pic.$(O) %.p.$(O) %.i.$(O) %.d.$(O): %.c
        $(CC) ...

Then make will think that with only one invocation all the different
types of files will be produced, which is of course wrong.

Is there another way to achieve this?

Many thanks in advance!

Sébastien.