如果文件名包含空格，如何在C中使用'make'？

Question

Introduction: I made a file called temperature 2.c and when I use the terminal to 'make' the file, it returns an error:
make: *** No rule to make target 'temperature 2'. Stop.
Terminal output screenshot

This is what I type into the terminal window.
make temperature\\ 2

Version Information: I'm using macOS 10.12.5 with Apple LLVM version 8.1.0 (clang-802.0.42)
Xcode Version 8.3.2 (8E2002)

Additional Information: I've tried using make "temperature 2" as someone suggested that it works on Windows but it's not working on Mac.
I have selected the correct directory in the terminal window and I'm able to compile all other files flawlessly.
Screenshot of the file

I'm aware of the fact that I can simply replace the space with an underscore to fix the issue but I want to know why this is happening in the first place.
Terminal works fine handling other directories which have a space in their name (using a backslash), so why isn't it working in this case?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Make comes with several built in rules, but they won't be designed to cope with spaces or other "unusual" characters in the file names, so you'll need to write a Makefile that overrides them or change your filenames.

This rule is the one you're using - you have to put quotes around the target file $@ and input file $< .

%: %.c
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o "$@" "$<"

Answer 2

When calling make, it requires you to have a Makefile, for quick and simple one file c program,

try

gcc -o "temperature 2" "temperature 2.c"

or

clang -o "temperature 2" "temperature 2.c"

Your make clearly tells you that with:

make: *** No rule to make target 'temperature 2'.  Stop.

Answer 3

Make feeds the commands to a shell that executes them as commands. If you have one line like this:

.c.o:
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $@ $<

when you try to do

make "some thing".o

it will try to find a file called "some thing.c" and will execute

cc  -c -o some thing.o some thing.c

which is to try to compile to some the three files thing.o , some and thing.c

But if you change the rule to

.c.o:
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o "$@" "$<"

it will feed the shell with this

cc  -c -o "some thing.o" "some thing.c"

that will produce the correct behaviour.

Makefile

.c.o:
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o "$@" "$<"

Sample run (in a FreeBSD system):

$ make "the problem.o"
cc -O -pipe -c -o "the problem.o" "the problem.c"