Target pattern contains no '%'. Makefile

Question

I have searched this problem in google, but still don't have some way to resolve a problem. I have 2 Makefiles: One as example and one as my file. Example:

BINDDIR=/src/binding
XBUILD=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild
PROJECT_ROOT=XMBindingLibrarySample
PROJECT=$(PROJECT_ROOT)/XMBindingLibrarySample.xcodeproj
TARGET=XMBindingLibrarySample
BTOUCH=/Developer/MonoTouch/usr/bin/btouch

 XMBindingLibrary.dll
libXMBindingLibrarySample-i386.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphonesimulator -configuration Release clean build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphonesimulator/lib$(TARGET).a $@
libXMBindingLibrarySample-armv6.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphoneos -arch armv6 -configuration Release clean      build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphoneos/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libXMBindingLibrarySample-armv7.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphoneos -arch armv7 -configuration Release clean build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphoneos/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a: libXMBindingLibrarySample-armv7.a libXMBindingLibrarySample-i386.a
lipo -create -output $@ $^

XMBindingLibrary.dll: AssemblyInfo.cs XMBindingLibrarySample.cs extras.cs libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a

$(BTOUCH) -unsafe --outdir=tmp -out:$@ XMBindingLibrarySample.cs -x=AssemblyInfo.cs -x=extras.cs --link-with=libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a,libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a

clean:
-rm -f *.a *.dll

My file:

BTOUCH=/Developer/MonoTouch/usr/bin/btouch
BINDDIR=/src/binding
XBUILD=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild
PROJECT_ROOT=IIViewDeckControllerSample
PROJECT=$(PROJECT_ROOT)/IIViewDeckController.xcodeproj
TARGET=IIViewDeckController

all: IIViewDeckController.dll

libIIViewDeckController-i386.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphonesimulator -configuration Release clean build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphonesimulator/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libIIViewDeckController-armv7.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphoneos -arch armv7 -configuration Release clean build  -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphoneos/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a: libIIViewDeckController-armv7.a libIIViewDeckController-i386.a
lipo -create -output $@ $^

IIViewDeckController.dll: AssemblyInfo.cs APIDefinition.cs StructsAndEnums.cs libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a
$(BTOUCH) -unsafe  -out:$@ APIDefinition.cs -x=AssemblyInfo.cs -x=StructsAndEnums.cs --link-with=libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a,libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a

clean:
-rm -f *.a *.dll

With example file everything is OK, with mine I have Error:

Makefile:4: *** target pattern contains no `%'.  Stop.
make: *** [all] Error 2

Spaces and tabs are significant in Makefiles, so can you upload these two files somewhere that doesn't eat whitespace? (gist.github.com or pastebin.com for instance). — Rolf Bjarne Kvinge, Feb 27 '13 at 14:05
Or better, do an accurate copy-and-paste of the actual makefiles into the question. Better still, *simplify them*, and give us the smallest, simplest makefile that produces the error. — Beta, Feb 27 '13 at 14:37
I didn't know about tabs. Thank you for replying. tabs fixed error make: *** [all] Error 2. — Mike, Feb 28 '13 at 07:32
First problem was still existed.Example: https://github.com/xamarin/monotouch-samples/blob/master/BindingSample/src/binding/Makefile. My makefile:https://github.com/mkovalyk/IIViewDeckControllerBinding/blob/master/src/binding/Makefile — Mike, Feb 28 '13 at 08:02
I know I'm two years late, but this is likely to be spaces used rather than tabs. Replace any spaces before commands with tabs. — gingerCodeNinja, Jun 13 '15 at 15:11
"Spaces and tabs are significant in Makefiles" - Thanks, @RolfBjarneKvinge that comment spotted what I was doing wrong. — Luis Milanese, May 15 '17 at 14:43

score 49 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 16 '18 at 18:04

49

This is a badly written error message from Make. It means "one of your filenames had a character that could be part of a regular expression". Make is very naive about filesystems and quoting. It doesn't believe that:

foo:  'The bar.'

refers to a literal string. It takes The as one word, bar. as another word, and then barfs on the period. Do this instead:

foo:  The\ bar\.

or in your case, backslash to the period in .xcodeproj.

edited Apr 16 '18 at 18:04

Smi

13,151
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answered Jun 27 '14 at 22:44

Charles Merriam

18,628
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7

Most of this answer is not right. First, make doesn't know anything about regular expressions and makes no use of them. Second, make won't "barf on the period"; make doesn't care about period characters; it treats them just like any other normal character (in virtually every context--certainly this one). Third, if you show `'the bar.'` in your prerequisites that's considered two prerequisites: first is `'the` and second is `bar.'` (note the quotes are included!) The accurate part of this answer is that make _is_ very naive about quoting :). – MadScientist Oct 18 '20 at 20:03
1

Sorry, post examples or have a more civil tone. – Charles Merriam Oct 19 '20 at 21:49
3

There's nothing uncivil in my comment. It's simply a fact that make doesn't support regular expressions, and that make won't "barf" on periods (I mean, it's hard to find _any_ makefile that doesn't have at least one prerequisite containing a period!! Clearly they work!), and that it will include literal quotes in quoted prerequisites. I don't really know what you mean by "post examples". – MadScientist Oct 20 '20 at 04:50

Jeroen · Answer 2 · 2017-10-19T08:04:59.850

40

This won't work:

default:
        echo "Hello world!"

This will:

default:
	echo "Hello world!"

Can you spot the difference?

That's right, the first one has spaces, the second one has tabs. The one with spaces will give you:

Makefile:2: *** missing separator. Stop.

And this is why we cannot have nice things...

edited Oct 19 '17 at 08:04

answered Oct 19 '17 at 07:58

Jeroen

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GNU make has supported a feature (`.RECIPEPREFIX`) to avoid this common error for >10 years now (since GNU make 3.82). But, most people don't use it. – MadScientist Oct 18 '20 at 20:05

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 10 '17 at 01:13

16

This error occurred for me because I had a rule of the form

foo: bar:
        baz

(note the trailing :).

answered Sep 10 '17 at 01:13

Radon Rosborough

4,207
3
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45

I accidentally added a colon (:) to a file name. Same effect. – Doug Royer Sep 07 '21 at 00:57

score 9 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 28 '19 at 13:20

9

Make sure there is no : in your path, i.e. cd ${url} => ://. If so, escape it like this:

cd ${url} => \://

edited Feb 28 '19 at 13:20

danius

2,489
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answered Oct 05 '18 at 19:03

RzR

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 23 '20 at 00:05

0

I had this problem if there was a colon in the target file name (i.e. a time stamp), for example:

 all: foo_01:34.txt
 
 foo_%.txt: bar_%.txt
      foobar $< > $@

I had to escape it:

 all: foo_01\:34.txt
 
 foo_%.txt: bar_%.txt
      foobar $< > $@

answered Sep 23 '20 at 00:05

Mark Lakata

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered May 10 '21 at 06:16

0

Saw the issue when your source files are contained in directory whose name contains colon (:).

answered May 10 '21 at 06:16

Alok Prasad

568
6
12

score -2 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 19 '18 at 05:28

-2

Solved: just go to the project tab it will present on vertical tab section then go to general and just change the location of project

answered Dec 19 '18 at 05:28

sagar bade

9
6

score -4 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 28 '13 at 08:37

-4

Drop the line 11 on https://github.com/mkovalyk/IIViewDeckControllerBinding/blob/master/src/binding/Makefile. %' is not recognised by make

answered Feb 28 '13 at 08:37

Stephane Delcroix

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yes,but it doesn't help. **Makefile:4: *** target pattern contains no `%'. Stop. ** is still exist. – Mike Feb 28 '13 at 08:55
you Makefile is fine here. what's the output of `make --version` on your mac ? Are you using GNU make ? Do you have xcode command line tools installed ? – Stephane Delcroix Feb 28 '13 at 12:01

Target pattern contains no '%'. Makefile

8 Answers8

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