Re: phony target!

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:24:36 +0330
> From: ali hagigat <address@hidden>
> 
> --------------------------------------
> 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 ....
> --------------------------------------
> 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!

"Phony target will cease to work" means that it will no longer work as
you expect it to: its commands will not be executed.  The manual
explicitly says that:

     The phony target will cease to work if anything ever does create a
  file named `clean' in this directory.  Since it has no prerequisites,
  the file `clean' would inevitably be considered up to date, and its
  commands would not be executed.

You deleted the second sentence, but that sentence answers the very
question you asked, and it is actually a continuation of the sentence
that precedes it.