Simplest way to reverse the order of strings in a make variable

Question

Let\'s say you have a variable in a makefile fragment like the following:

MY_LIST=a b c d

How do I then reverse the order of that list? I need

Answer 1

An improvement to the GNU make solution:

reverse = $(if $(wordlist 2,2,$(1)),$(call reverse,$(wordlist 2,$(words $(1)),$(1))) $(firstword $(1)),$(1))

• better stopping condition, original uses the empty string wasting a function call
• doesn't add a leading space to the reversed list, unlike the original