Question

I would like to have a makefile copy files from another directory and change their names. At the moment, I do something like this:

ALL: figure1.eps figure2.eps figure3.eps

figure1.eps: ../other_directory/a_nice_graph.eps
        cp $< $@

figure2.eps: ../other_directory/a_beautiful_graph.eps
        cp $< $@

figure3.eps: ../other_directory/an_ugly_graph.eps
        cp $< $@

I would like to avoid writing the same rule (cp $< $@) for every line. I can’t use the standard wildcards (%.eps) because the filenames do not match. Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

Try this:

ALL: figure1.eps figure2.eps figure3.eps

%.eps:
        cp $< $@

figure1.eps: ../other_directory/a_nice_graph.eps

figure2.eps: ../other_directory/a_beautiful_graph.eps

figure3.eps: ../other_directory/an_ugly_graph.eps