Circular dependency exists in makefile

Question

I tried executing the following (found on a website)

.PHONY: coat shoes mobile sweater socks trousers shirt pants undershirt

# target    prerequisite           command
# ------------------------------------------------
coat:       shoes mobile sweater;  @echo put on $@
shoes:      socks trousers;        @echo put on $@
mobile:     trousers;              @echo put on $@
sweater:    shirt;                 @echo put on $@
socks:      ;                      @echo put on $@
trousers:   pants shirt;           @echo put on $@
shirt:      undershirt;            @echo put on $@
pants:      ;                      @echo put on $@
undershirt: ;                      @echo put on $@

But I am getting Circular dependency error when executed on cygwin. Here is the output

     1  MAKE Version 5.2  Copyright (c) 1987, 2000 Borland
     2  Error: Circular dependency exists in makefile
     3    socks -> socks
     4  Error: Circular dependency exists in makefile
     5    shoes -> socks
     6  Error: Circular dependency exists in makefile
     7    mobile -> mobile
     8  Error: Circular dependency exists in makefile
     9    coat -> shoes
    10  Fatal: ';' does not exist - don't know how to make it

Need help...

Answer 1

Use GNU make. Here's the evidence:

1. You are using a make copyrighted to Borland, which indicates that the make you are using is not GNU make.

2. I've found the example here . The author provides a link to GNU make, suggesting that his examples expect GNU make.

3. The make you are running interprets ; as a dependency. Clearly it is not interpreting your Makefile correctly.

4. If I use GNU make with your example, here's what I get:

    $ make put on socks put on pants put on undershirt put on shirt put on trousers put on shoes put on mobile put on sweater put on coat