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So such a rule's commands are used for all targets and dependencies that have no commands of their own and for which no other implicit rule applies. For example, when testing a makefile, you might not care if the source files contain real data, only that they exist. You can instead define commands to be used for targets for which there are no rules at all, even ones which don't specify commands. Such a rule's commands are used for all dependencies which do not appear as targets in any explicit rule, and for which no implicit rule applies. You can use a last-resort rule to override part of another makefile.