Calling Windows commands (e.g. del) from a GNU makefile

makefile, windows

Solution

It seems the `/C` switch needs to be escaped because a `/` is interpreted as a path in GNU Make. The following works as expected:

clean:
    cmd //C del *.o

Problem

It does not appear to be possible to call Windows system commands (e.g. del, move, etc) using GNU Make. I'm trying to create a makefile that doesn't rely on the user having extra tools (e.g. `rm.exe` from Cygwin) installed. When the following rule is run, an error is reported `del: command not found`: ``` clean: del *.o ``` This is presumably because there is no such execuatable as "del". I've also tried running it as an option to `cmd` but with this only seems to open a new prompt: ``` clean: cmd /C del *.o ``` I'm using Windows XP (5.1.2600) with GNU Make 3.79.1 that is bundled as part of MSys.

Original source