updating target at the end of recipe, after updating prerequisites, might not work?

[Mark Galeck (CW)]

Hello,

I am working on Linux RH5, and I have a recipe that updates it's prerequisites, 
but at the end (according to one of Paul's "rules") updates the target, 
something like this:

target: prerequisites
        <touch prerequisites>
        <touch target>


To my amazement, the target gets rebuilt over and over, when I try -d, it tells 
me the prerequisites are "newer".  

When I put "sleep 1" in between the two touch lines - then it works, the target 
is newer. !!??

How can this be???  Even if the resolution was low enough that the two files 
have the _same_ timestamp, according to the manual, should not update the 
target (only update the target if prerequisites "newer").  Certainly there is 
no way the prerequisites can be "newer".  

Can somebody clue me in?

Thank you,

Mark