makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop?

Question

This is my makefile: all:ll ll:ll.c gcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $@ $< clean : \\rm -fr ll When I try to `make clean` or `make make`, I get this error: :makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop.How can I fix it?

Answer 1

Are you indenting each line with hard tabs or spaces?

GNU make wants a real tab at the beginning of each command line, but your text editor may have inserted spaces even if you physically press the Tab key on your keyboard. Somewhere in your text editor's options there is hopefully a way to turn off expanding tabs.

One way to fix this if you use `vi' or `vim' as your text editor is to delete all white space at the beginning of a command line and then while on that same line issue the editor command:

:s/^/\t/g

to replace the beginning of the current line with a hard tab.