How to address the error has both : and :: entries while using gnu make

Question

I am trying to port a new module into my project. The module has its own make file. I have no background or experience with the make build system, so I decided to use the following command:

make -f Makefile -f ../newmodule/tbt/makefile

But I get the following errors:

../newmodule/tbt/makefile:14: make/macros.mk: No such file or directory ../newmodule/tbt/makefile:66: *** target file `all' has both : and :: entries. Stop.

Please correct me if I am wrong; it is my understanding that my first error is because I issued make from my main project, and I need to somehow configure it to look into the directory of ../newmodule/tbt/make to find macros.mk. Would anyone be able to suggest an effective way of addressing this issue? What is the best way to include the contents of ../newmodule/tbt/make folder?

My 2nd error seems to be exactly what make complains about, which is having : and :: in the two make files for the target "all". I can not follow the 2nd make file very closely, but there is not much to the lines that have this target. I am thinking of changing it to My_all, and configure this new variable as the default target of the new module. I am not even sure if my terminology is correct. "all" is called the default target for make right? I have reviewed most of the make file document, but it is 5 am, and I do not recall some things.

Answer 1

Try running two separate make -f myMakefile commands, one from each module directory so that the relative paths work out properly as you have already observed that you current directory when executing make may be part of the problem.

Answer 2

I came across this error during compilation of some package under OpenWrt. The problem was in the VERSION declaration in the Makefile.

So, check if you have declared anything with unnecessary spaces or comments after some variable.

Removing the comment or space after variables should work.