Executing [ FILE1 -ot FILE2 ] yields different results in make and shell

Question

From Table 7-1 of Bash Guide for Beginners, we can say that [ FILE1 -ot FILE2 ] will yield True if FILE1 is older than FILE2, or

Answer 1

Try this experiment (in a script):

In the case I tested: when file1 does not exist and when file2 does exist:

#!/bin/sh

[ file1 -ot file2 ] && echo "file1 older" || echo "file2 older"

yields file2 older

#!/bin/bash

[ file1 -ot file2 ] && echo "file1 older" || echo "file2 older"

yields file1 older

By default make will use #!/bin/sh as the shell, you can change this by: SHELL = /bin/bash in your makefile

I am not sure why this is different - its just a different implementation between sh and bash...