.PRECIOUS make target question

[Doug Carter]

I'm have some trouble with the .PRECIOUS make target.  I don't want
intermediate files deleted in the event of an error or interrupt, so
I've done something like this in the Makefile:

.PRECIOUS: %.o

.c.o:
cc -c $<

---

If I run: make foo.o, then interrupt it before it's done, I get the 
following message from make:

make: *** Deleting file `foo.o'
make: *** wait: No child processes.  Stop.

No matter what I do, foo.o is deleted. I am sure this worked on earlier
versions of gnumake, I'm currently using 3.78.1.


TIA,

Doug Carter