saying that a file must exist

[Terrence M. Brannon]

I'm trying to write a simple makefile that copies a local file named edan.el to ${EDAN_DIR}/edan.el, assuming that ${EDAN_DIR}/edan.el is not already there.

The following makefile does not work because of  the line """init: ${EDAN_EL}"""  … I'd appreciate some help with this. Thanks!

.PHONY: init

EDAN_DIR = ${HOME}/.emacs.d
EDAN_EL  = ${EDAN_DIR}/edan.el

init: ${EDAN_EL}
cp edan.el ${EDAN_EL}

[Michael Lachmann]

I think the following would work:
$(EDAN_EL): edan.el
   cp edan.pl $(EDAN_EL)

init: $(EDAN_EL)

You say that $(EDAN_EL) depands on edan.pl. Whenever edan.el is newer than $(EDAN_EL), or $(EDAN_EL) doesn't exists, the copy will take place.

you could also write above
$(EDAN_EL): edan.el
   cp $(input) $(output)

[Terrence M. Brannon]

Thanks. Is there any  difference between using parentheses instead of braces? $(VAR) versus ${VAR}

[Michael Lachmann]

I think not, just what you're used to. You can also use ${{ }} when needed.