Using `pkg-config` as command line argument under cygwin/msys bash

I'm trying to use cygwin as a build environment under Windows. I have some dependencies on 3rd party packages, for example, GTK+. Normally when I build under Linux, in my Makefile I can add a call to pkg-config as an argument to gcc, so it comes out like so: ``` gcc example.c `pkg-config --libs --cflags gtk+-2.0` ``` This works fine under Linux, but in cygwin I get: ``` :Invalid argument make: *** [example] Error 1 ``` Right now, I am just manually running pkg-config and pasting the output into the Makefile, which is truly terrible. Is there a good way to workaround or fix for this issue? Make isn't the culprit. I can copy and paste the command line that make uses to call gcc, and that by itself will run gcc, which halts with ": Invalid argument". I wrote a small test program to print out command line arguments: ``` for (i = 0; i < argc; i++) printf("'%s'\n", argv[i]); ``` Notice the single quotes. ``` $ pkg-config --libs gtk+-2.0 -Lc:/mingw/lib -lgtk-win32-2.0 -lgdk-win32-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpang owin32-1.0 -lgdi32 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lcairo -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule- 2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lintl ``` Running through the test program: ``` $ ./t `pkg-config --libs gtk+-2.0` 'C:\cygwin\home\smo\pvm\src\t.exe' '-Lc:/mingw/lib' '-lgtk-win32-2.0' '-lgdk-win32-2.0' '-latk-1.0' '-lgdk_pixbuf-2.0' '-lpangowin32-1.0' '-lgdi32' '-lpangocairo-1.0' '-lpango-1.0' '-lcairo' '-lgobject-2.0' '-lgmodule-2.0' '-lglib-2.0' '-lintl' ' ``` Notice the one single quote on the last line. It looks like argc is one greater than it should be, and argv[argc - 1] is null. Running the same test on Linux does not have this result. That said, is there, say, some way I could have the Makefile store the result of pkg-config into a variable, and then use that variable, rather than using the back-tick operator?