What are ellipses (...) used for in a Makefile.am?

Question

I made a library using libtool a while back. In my example code, the Makefile.am contains ellipses (...). I don't remember what purpose they serve, and googling around I haven't found an answer. What are they for?

ignitech_example_SOURCES = ignitech.cpp …
ignitech_example_dyn_SOURCES = ignitech.cpp …
ignitech_example_LDADD = ../libignitech.la
ignitech_example_dyn_LDADD = -lignitech
example:
        $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) -C .. all
        $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) ignitech_example
        $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) ignitech_example_dyn

Answer 1

Elipses do not have any special significance to Automake. If you put an elipsis in a list of file names, as in the example, then it will be interpreted as a file name. Automake especially attributes no special significance to the Unicode single-character elipsis, such as appears in your example.

Overall, I'm inclined to guess that the Makefile.am fragment presented in the question in fact is not drawn from a working Automake input file at all, but instead copied verbatim from an example in a book or tutorial, where the elipses are not meant to be taken as literal file content.