Target pattern contains no '%'. Makefile

Question

I have searched this problem in google, but still don't have some way to resolve a problem. I have 2 Makefiles: One as example and one as my file. Example:

BINDDIR=/src/binding
XBUILD=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild
PROJECT_ROOT=XMBindingLibrarySample
PROJECT=$(PROJECT_ROOT)/XMBindingLibrarySample.xcodeproj
TARGET=XMBindingLibrarySample
BTOUCH=/Developer/MonoTouch/usr/bin/btouch

 XMBindingLibrary.dll
libXMBindingLibrarySample-i386.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphonesimulator -configuration Release clean build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphonesimulator/lib$(TARGET).a $@
libXMBindingLibrarySample-armv6.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphoneos -arch armv6 -configuration Release clean      build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphoneos/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libXMBindingLibrarySample-armv7.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphoneos -arch armv7 -configuration Release clean build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphoneos/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a: libXMBindingLibrarySample-armv7.a libXMBindingLibrarySample-i386.a
lipo -create -output $@ $^

XMBindingLibrary.dll: AssemblyInfo.cs XMBindingLibrarySample.cs extras.cs libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a

$(BTOUCH) -unsafe --outdir=tmp -out:$@ XMBindingLibrarySample.cs -x=AssemblyInfo.cs -x=extras.cs --link-with=libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a,libXMBindingLibrarySampleUniversal.a

clean:
-rm -f *.a *.dll

My file:

BTOUCH=/Developer/MonoTouch/usr/bin/btouch
BINDDIR=/src/binding
XBUILD=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild
PROJECT_ROOT=IIViewDeckControllerSample
PROJECT=$(PROJECT_ROOT)/IIViewDeckController.xcodeproj
TARGET=IIViewDeckController

all: IIViewDeckController.dll

libIIViewDeckController-i386.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphonesimulator -configuration Release clean build -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphonesimulator/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libIIViewDeckController-armv7.a:
$(XBUILD) -project $(PROJECT) -target $(TARGET) -sdk iphoneos -arch armv7 -configuration Release clean build  -mv $(PROJECT_ROOT)/build/Release-iphoneos/lib$(TARGET).a $@

libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a: libIIViewDeckController-armv7.a libIIViewDeckController-i386.a
lipo -create -output $@ $^

IIViewDeckController.dll: AssemblyInfo.cs APIDefinition.cs StructsAndEnums.cs libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a
$(BTOUCH) -unsafe  -out:$@ APIDefinition.cs -x=AssemblyInfo.cs -x=StructsAndEnums.cs --link-with=libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a,libIIViewDeckControllerUniversal.a

clean:
-rm -f *.a *.dll

With example file everything is OK, with mine I have Error:

Makefile:4: *** target pattern contains no `%'.  Stop.
make: *** [all] Error 2

Answer 1

This is a badly written error message from Make. It means "one of your filenames had a character that could be part of a regular expression". Make is very naive about filesystems and quoting. It doesn't believe that:

foo:  'The bar.'

refers to a literal string. It takes The as one word, bar. as another word, and then barfs on the period. Do this instead:

foo:  The\ bar\.

or in your case, backslash to the period in .xcodeproj.

Answer 2

This won't work:

default:
        echo "Hello world!"

This will:

default:
	echo "Hello world!"

Can you spot the difference?

That's right, the first one has spaces, the second one has tabs. The one with spaces will give you:

Makefile:2: *** missing separator. Stop.

And this is why we cannot have nice things...

Answer 3

This error occurred for me because I had a rule of the form

foo: bar:
        baz

(note the trailing :).

Answer 4

Make sure there is no : in your path, i.e. cd ${url} => ://. If so, escape it like this:

cd ${url} => \://