intermediate files

[ali hagigat]

Dear Oleksandr Gavenko,
In the makefile you wrote, the file, 'my.c.in', seems a regular file
you created! It does not seem to be an intermediate file created by
make.
I wonder if Mr.Paul Smith can verify that and please mention when
exactly make creates an intermediate file by a simple example.
Thank you.

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:58:25 +0300
From: Oleksandr Gavenko <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: intermediate files
To: address@hidden
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

On 20.10.2010 8:36, ali hagigat wrote:
> Can an intermediate file be created automatically by a
> makefile?(without .INTERMEDIATE target) Please write a simple example.
> Thank you.
>
%.c: %.c.in
       cp $< $@

%.o: %.c
       cp $< $@

  $ echo hello >my.c.in
  $ make my.o
cp my.c.in my.c
cp my.c my.o
rm my.c     #   THAT IS?

--
С уважением, Александр Гавенко.

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:06:59 +0330
From: ali hagigat <address@hidden>
Subject: intermediate files
To: address@hidden
Message-ID:
       <address@hidden>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Can an intermediate file be created automatically by a
makefile?(without .INTERMEDIATE target) Please write a simple example.
Thank you.

PS.
.DEFAULT can not be used as:
.DEFAULT:
for an empty command, it should be: .DEFAULT:  ;
It is different with a regular target and the following valid rule
with empty recipe :
target1: