.PRECIOUS :

(near the top of the makefile)

.ALWAYS

Always rebuilds this target, regardless of the results of configuration lookup or the time stamps of its dependencies. The -a command-line option is equivalent to an .ALWAYS attribute for each target in the makefile.

.CHAIN

Enables chaining of inference rules. (See Multiple-Step Inference Rules.)

.NOCHAIN disables chaining, which may increase processing speed slightly.

.DEFAULT

When omake is run without specifying any targets on the command line, the first target (the default target) is built. The lack of user control of the default target makes it difficult to write generalized makefiles that can be included by other makefiles.

The .NODEFAULT attribute indicates that this target is not the default target. Use .NODEFAULT for all non-rule targets in included, generalized makefiles. That way a makefile can include the generalized makefile without having the first target of the generalized makefile be the default target.

In the generalized makefile you can put .NODEFAULT as the attribute of each target, or put

.NODEFAULT :

at the top of the generalized makefile and

.DEFAULT :

at the bottom.

Note that targets defined in make.ini or in makefiles included from make.ini are never the default target.

.IGNORE

When making a target, a build script that returns a nonzero status causes omake to terminate unless the target has the .IGNORE attribute. The -i command-line option is equivalent to a .IGNORE attribute for all targets. The status of individual build scripts can be ignored with the dash (-) shell-line prefix.

.INFER

omake uses inference rules to look for the inferred dependency for targets that have no build scripts. To omit, the inference rule check for targets without build scripts, give them the .NOINFER attribute. To force the inference rule check for targets with build scripts, give them the .INFER attribute.

.MAKE

Overrides the -n and -q command-line options. It is useful when executing omake recursively. For example:

nt .MAKE :
( cd msdos.dir ; omake $(MFLAGS) )

If you execute omake -n nt, omake changes directory into nt.dir and executes omake -n. Without this attribute, the result is to display

( cd nt.dir ; omake $(MFLAGS) )

Similarly, omake -q nt changes directory and execute of omake -q.
The .MAKE attribute differs from the & shell-line prefix, which overrides only the -n command-line option. The appearance of $(MAKE) on the build script also overrides only -n.

.NOCMP_NON_MF_DEPS : tgt ...

Builds the specified targets as if the -G option were specified; for each specified target, any dependency not explicitly declared in the makefile is not used in configuration lookup.

.NOCONFIG_REC : tgt ...

Builds the specified targets as if the -L option were specified; modification time is used for build avoidance, and no CRs or derived objects are created.

.PRECIOUS

When a build script returns a nonzero status, omake checks whether the current target has been written. If it has, omake deletes the target, which prevents corrupted files from being used. This attribute prevents the deletion of the target itself and of chained targets.

.RULE

Is set when the percent sign appears on a dependency line. You can use the .NORULE attribute to allow a target with % in its name.
On rare occasions, you may want to use .RULE to specify an inference rule that does not use %. Because % is a wildcard character, a rule without it matches exactly one target name.

.SILENT

A target's build scripts are displayed before being executed unless the target has the .SILENT attribute. The -s command-line option is equivalent to a .SILENT attribute for every target in the makefile. The @ shell-line prefix also prevents display of the build script.