Missing MACHTYPE in makefile

Question

My makefile has the following two lines.

$(MACHTYPE)/jkweb.a: $(O) $(MACHTYPE)
        ar rcus $(MACHTYPE)/jkweb.a $(O)

When I echo I can see MACHTYPE is x86_64-pc-linux-gnu. I already have the x86_64-pc-linux-gnu directory in the current directory. But when I type make, it says ar: /jkweb.a: Permission denied which is supposed to be x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/jkweb.a.

Why is the MACHTYPE missing?

P.S. The software is Blat. The mailing list suggests change MACHTYPE to x86_64.

include ../inc/common.mk


O = aliType.o annoColumn.o annoFilter.o annoFormatter.o annoFormatTab.o \
    annoGrator.o annoGratorQuery.o annoOption.o annoRow.o annoStreamer.o annoStreamVcf.o \
    apacheLog.o asParse.o axt.o axtAffine.o bamFile.o base64.o \
    basicBed.o bbiRead.o bbiWrite.o bigBed.o binRange.o bits.o \
    blastOut.o blastParse.o boxClump.o boxLump.o bPlusTree.o \
    bwgCreate.o bwgQuery.o bwgValsOnChrom.o \
    cda.o chain.o chainBlock.o chainConnect.o chainToAxt.o chainToPsl.o \
    cheapcgi.o cirTree.o codebias.o colHash.o common.o correlate.o crTree.o \
    dgRange.o diGraph.o dlist.o dnaLoad.o dnaMarkov.o dnaMotif.o dnaseq.o \
    dnautil.o dsPrint.o dtdParse.o dystring.o \
    emblParse.o errCatch.o errabort.o \
    fa.o ffAli.o ffScore.o filePath.o fixColor.o flydna.o fof.o \
    font/mgCourier10.o font/mgCourier12.o font/mgCourier14.o font/mgCourier18.o \
    font/mgCourier24.o font/mgCourier34.o font/mgCourier8.o font/mgHelvetica10.o \
    font/mgHelvetica12.o font/mgHelvetica14.o font/mgHelvetica18.o font/mgHelvetica24.o \
    font/mgHelvetica34.o font/mgHelvetica8.o font/mgHelveticaBold10.o font/mgHelveticaBold12.o \
    font/mgHelveticaBold14.o font/mgHelveticaBold18.o font/mgHelveticaBold24.o \
    font/mgHelveticaBold34.o font/mgHelveticaBold8.o font/mgSixhi6.o font/mgSail8.o \
    font/mgTimes10.o font/mgTimes12.o font/mgTimes14.o font/mgTimes18.o \
    font/mgTimes24.o font/mgTimes34.o font/mgTimes8.o font/mgMenlo12.o \
    fuzzyShow.o \
    gapCalc.o gdf.o gemfont.o genomeRangeTree.o \
    gfNet.o gff.o gff3.o gfxPoly.o gifLabel.o \
    hacTree.o hash.o histogram.o hmmPfamParse.o hmmstats.o htmlPage.o htmshell.o \
    https.o intExp.o intValTree.o internet.o itsa.o iupac.o \
    jointalign.o jpegSize.o keys.o knetUdc.o kxTok.o linefile.o lineFileOnBigBed.o localmem.o log.o \
    maf.o mafFromAxt.o mafScore.o md5.o memalloc.o memgfx.o metaWig.o mgCircle.o \
    mgPolygon.o mime.o net.o nib.o nibTwo.o nt4.o numObscure.o \
    obscure.o oldGff.o oligoTm.o options.o osunix.o pairHmm.o peakCluster.o \
    phyloTree.o pipeline.o portimpl.o pngwrite.o psGfx.o psPoly.o pscmGfx.o \
    psl.o pslGenoShow.o pslShow.o pslTbl.o pslTransMap.o pthreadWrap.o \
    qa.o quickHeap.o quotedP.o \
    ra.o rainbow.o rbTree.o rangeTree.o regexHelper.o repMask.o \
    rle.o rnautil.o rqlEval.o rqlParse.o rudp.o \
    scoreWindow.o seg.o seqOut.o seqStats.o servBrcMcw.o servCrunx.o \
    servcis.o servcl.o servmsII.o servpws.o shaRes.o slog.o snof.o \
    snofmake.o snofsig.o spaceSaver.o spacedColumn.o spacedSeed.o \
    splatAli.o sqlList.o sqlNum.o subText.o sufa.o sufx.o synQueue.o \
    tabRow.o textOut.o tokenizer.o trix.o twoBit.o \
    udc.o vcf.o vGfx.o vPng.o verbose.o \
    wildcmp.o wormdna.o \
    xAli.o xa.o xap.o xenshow.o xmlEscape.o xp.o zlibFace.o

$(MACHTYPE)/jkweb.a: $(O) $(MACHTYPE)
    ar rcus $(MACHTYPE)/jkweb.a $(O)

$(MACHTYPE):
    mkdir $(MACHTYPE)

test:
    cd tests && ${MAKE} test

clean:
    rm -f ${O} $(MACHTYPE)/jkweb.a
    cd tests && ${MAKE} clean

tags:
    etags ../inc/*.h ../lib/*.h ../lib/*.c  ../hg/inc/*.h ../hg/lib/*.h ../hg/lib/*.c ../hg/hgTracks/*.c ../hg/hgc/*.c ../hg/hgTrackUi/*.c

Answer 1

Let's try an experiment:

1) check the shell: echo $SHELL. (I expect bash.)

2) check the variable: set | grep MACHTYPE (I expect "x86_64-pc-linux-gnu".)

3) check the variable again: printenv | grep MACHTYPE (I expect nothing, no output.)

4) At the top of the makefile add the line $(info MACHTYPE is $(MACHTYPE)) and run make. (I expect "MACHTYPE is ", followed by failure.)

5) Knock wood and run make MACHTYPE=$MACHTYPE.

EDIT:
Good! The problem is that the variable MACHTYPE is in your shell as a local variable (which is not passed to a process like make), not as an environmental variable (which would be). So you can run Make as above, make MACHTYPE=$MACHTYPE, or turn MACHTYPE into an environmental variable:

export MACHTYPE
make

(Correction thanks to Reinier Torenbeek.)