phony target!

[ali hagigat]

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4.5 Phony Targets
...The phony target will cease to work if anything ever does create a
file named ‘clean’ in this directory....Since it knows that phony
targets do not name actual files that could be remade from other
files, make skips the implicit rule search for phony targets ....
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Please consider the following extract of the manual. If "phony targets
do not name actual files" why "phony target will cease to work" as it
names an actual file in fact? The term, "phony target" refers to two
different cases at the same time!LoL!