Karl Berry Olaf Bachmann and many others. 4.9 Multiple Targets in a Rule A rule with multiple targets is equivalent to writing many rules, each with one target, and all identical aside from that. The rule contributes the same dependencies to all the targets also. This is useful in two cases. You want just dependencies, no commands.
Similar commands work for all the targets.
See section 8.2 Functions for String Substitution and Analysis , for an explanation of the subst function. You cannot do this with multiple targets in an ordinary rule, but you can do it with a static pattern rule . See section 4.11 Static Pattern Rules .