How to get the invoking target of makefile?

Question

How to get the invoking target of the GNU make Makefile?

for example, I invoke make with the following command line:

make a-target

How can I get the invoking target "a-target" in the Makefile and assign it to a variable?

Further more, if more than one target is specified on the command line:

make target1 target2 ...

How do I get all of them?

Petr · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-19 07:53:11Z

94

The variable MAKECMDGOALS contains the list of targets that were specified on the command line, no matter how many (it's empty if there were none).

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answered Jul 8, 2010 at 12:37

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Comments

Vlad · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-08 09:54:01Z

21

Maybe you need $@?

answered Jul 8, 2010 at 9:54

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$@ is the current target, not the target that was specified on the command line as in the original question.