Make error: missing separator

Question

I am getting the following error running make:

Makefile:168: *** missing separator.  Stop.

What is causing this?

Answer 1

In my case, this error was caused by the lack of a mere space. I had this if block in my makefile:

if($(METHOD),opt)
CFLAGS=
endif

which should have been:

if ($(METHOD),opt)
CFLAGS=
endif

with a space after if.

Answer 2

As indicated in the online manual, the most common cause for that error is that lines are indented with spaces when make expects tab characters.

Correct

target: 
\tcmd

where \t is TAB (U+0009)

Wrong

target:
....cmd

where each . represents a SPACE (U+0020).

Answer 3

I had the missing separator file in Makefiles generated by qmake. I was porting Qt code to a different platform. I didn't have QMAKESPEC nor MAKE set. Here's the link I found the answer:

https://forum.qt.io/topic/3783/missing-separator-error-in-makefile/5

Answer 4

This is a syntax error in your Makefile. It's quite hard to be more specific than that, without seeing the file itself, or relevant portion(s) thereof.

Answer 5

In my case, I was actually missing a tab in between ifeq and the command on the next line. No spaces were there to begin with.

ifeq ($(wildcard $DIR_FILE), )
cd $FOLDER; cp -f $DIR_FILE.tpl $DIR_FILE.xs;
endif

Should have been:

ifeq ($(wildcard $DIR_FILE), )
<tab>cd $FOLDER; cp -f $DIR_FILE.tpl $DIR_FILE.xs;
endif

Note the <tab> is an actual tab character

Answer 6

My error was on a variable declaration line with a multi-line extension. I have a trailing space after the "\" which made that an invalid line continuation.

MY_VAR = \
   val1 \ <-- 0x20 there caused the error.
   val2