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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-12T14:02:37+00:00

I am working on the Makefile someone else in my lab wrote, and I

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I am working on the Makefile someone else in my lab wrote, and I see a command called true in some rules:

other_rule_A: YYY force_it
          ....
other_rule_B: XXX force_it
          ....

force_it:
          true

What does true mean here? Is it a command run by the subshell? What would happen if I replace it by false? Is true a binary invoked by the shell?

For reference, I found this other question in Stackoverflow: Why do makefiles sometimes have ‘true ‘ as part of the build script?, but I don’t think command is related to the command they cover in that thread.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    true is a command (usually the executable /bin/true, but often also a shell builtin) that does nothing and returns success. If you were to replace it with false, the force_it: rule would always fail and thus stop the make process at that point.

    The difference between having this true action and having a force_it: rule with no action is that with no action, there might be some other force_it: rule with actions added elsewhere in the makefile. With a true action, you know that there can be no other action — if another action was added, you’d get a make error.

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