The unixy way of doing things is this: 
clean:
    rm -f glversion.txt glversion.exe glversion.o

[download]

The -f option tells rm (among other things) that it's not an error if some of the files don't exist. Maybe there's a similar option for del?

Another way is it let the command fail, and ignore the failure by prepending a dash to the command: 

clean:
   - rm glversion.txt glversion.exe glversion.o

[download]

This way rm will fail if some of these files don't exist, but make will ignore that error. Again I don't know if the various make dialects understand that.

To me it seems overkill to both add the leading dash and have the if exists in the makefile.

In reply to Re: [OT] Makefiles - nmake syntax v dmake syntax by moritz
in thread [OT] Makefiles - nmake syntax v dmake syntax by syphilis

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.