What does VPATH do for make?

[Badger BA 64810]

In article <20767 at adm.BRL.MIL> rbj at dsys.ncsl.nist.gov (Root Boy Jim) writes:
[lots deleted related to previous thread]
>Another way to do it is by using the `arch' command.
>all clean install:
>	(cd `arch`; make -f ../Makefile ARCH=-D`arch | tr a-z A-Z` real$@)
>Of course, there is also the VPATH variable, which may or may not work.
>
>	Root Boy Jim and
>	the GNU Bohemians
[cute       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^]

I remember somthing like VPATH from an article on ``build'', a make-like
utility which used an environment variable to specify a list of directories 
to search for files.  This allowed the contstruction of ``views'' by linking
or copying files from the other directory into the current directory just 
for the duration of the make.  Is this now a capability of make?  I don't 
find it in the man page:

%  man make | ul |grep VPATH
man make | ul |grep VPATH

On the other hand, make seems to know about VPATH:

%  which make
/bin/make
%  strings /bin/make  |grep PATH
VPATH
PATH
%  

>From a quick look at the V3.2.1 source code for make, I think it does 
Does anyone know for sure what VPATH is for?  Do your man pages reveal all?

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