How to force make to always rebuild a file

Question

I have a version.c file in my project that contains current revision of the project and some other stuff that is passed as a definition (-D compiler option) from makefile.

Answer 1

Not a makefile way, but easier than touch:

make -B

‘-B’ ‘--always-make’

Consider all targets out-of-date. GNU make proceeds to consider targets and their prerequisites using the normal algorithms; however, all targets so considered are always remade regardless of the status of their prerequisites. To avoid infinite recursion, if MAKE_RESTARTS (see Other Special Variables) is set to a number greater than 0 this option is disabled when considering whether to remake makefiles (see How Makefiles Are Remade).