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Asked: 2026-05-27T10:02:58+00:00

I usually have an environment setting for MAKE_MODE (Windows XP, using GNU make, both

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I usually have an environment setting for MAKE_MODE (Windows XP, using GNU make, both under Cygwin and native)

set MAKE_MODE=UNIX

I now found differences between my build server (which has no MAKE_MODE defined) and a local build. This may be something completely different, but it got me wondering what other values I could specify for MAKE_MODE.

I think I know that MAKE_MODE=UNIX is suppose to tell GNU make to use /bin/sh – if it finds it – , but I quickly checked the GNU make manual and couldn’t find a description. A google search only told me what I already know, but doesn’t give a valid alternative.

Is the only alternative to not define the variable? Does it have influence at all when using CMD.exe and a native version of GNU make?

EDIT: So far I have found references for the values ‘unix’, ‘win32’, ‘null’ and undefined, but no explanations, and no specifications. But a look at the source code for GNU make 3.82 shows not a single occurrence of the string “MAKE_MODE”, so GNUmake itself apparently doesn’t change its behavior when this environment variable is set or not.

EDIT2: I checked the source code for GNU make for MinGW, and again found nothing. Maybe it’s CygWin specific?

EDIT3: I found a reference that it might be property of an old version of GNU make, so I checked version 3.75. No luck, the string MAKE_MODE does not appear in the source code at all. The next step really must be the Cygwin version of GNU make. I know from 10 years ago that the Cygwin port in those days was not integrated in the regular source tree.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I found an ancient mailing list entry on the Cygwin site, explaining the basic operational effect of MAKE_MODE. This definitely indicates that the variable has to do with the Cygwin implementation of GNU make.

    I’ll dig around in the source code, and add to this answer when I find more details.

    UPDATE: In a more recent post by maintainer Christopher Faylor I found the following update for GNU make version 3.81:

    Note that the –win32 command line option and “MAKE_MODE” environment
    variable are no longer supported in Cygwin’s make. If you need to use a
    Makefile which contains MS-DOS path names, then please use a MinGW
    version of make.

    I’ve not really found the values allowed for MAKE_MODE, but it’s not any more necessary or supported in most recent versions of GNU make for Cygwin, and it was used for supporting DOS filenames in Cygwin’s make.

    And if you really want to know the set of allowed values, look in the source for Cygwin’s make version before 3.81-1. I guess the only useful value was unix, all others will have meant the same.

    Case closed? There’s still not many views here…

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