Bug in the make program (?!)

[KONSTANTAS Dimitri]

Using the make program, I came to case where make behaves differently
when executed with the -n option and without.
That is with the -n option the actions are listed, as excected,
but without it, they are not executed (I get that the target file
is up-to-date).

Following is a shar file that recreates the case.
(the files are empty, but it is the modification dates that count)
After unpacking the shar file , just give 
	make -n test
and then
	make test

Can anybody explain what is happening?
I run the test in both VAX with 4.3 and SUN 3.4 and get the same behavior.

Dimitri Konstantas
University of Geneva

	dimitri at cgeuge51.bitnet
	mcvax!cernvac!cui!dimitri


---- cut here ---------------------------------------------

# This is a shell archive.  Remove anything before this line, then
# unpack it by saving it in a file and typing "sh file".  (Files
# unpacked will be owned by you and have default permissions.)
#
# This archive contains:
# makefile crf
# The files f1.a f2.o f2.c test test.c test.o will also be create

echo x - makefile
cat > "makefile" << '//E*O*F makefile//'
test:     f1.a
	@echo "compiling TEST"

f1.a: f2.o
	@echo "Recompiling f1.a"

f2.o: f2.c
	@echo "recompiling f2.c"

//E*O*F makefile//

echo x - crf
cat > "crf" << '//E*O*F crf//'
echo "Please wait a few seconds to recreate the files with correct times"
touch test.c ; sleep 1
touch f2.o ; sleep 1
touch f1.a ; sleep 1
touch test.o ; sleep 1
touch test ; sleep 1
touch f2.c
//E*O*F crf//

sh ./crf

exit 0