Behavior of parenthesis in the shell invoked from make - shell

Question

I'm building a Linux from scratch on my old Android phone in a chrooted environment (which can be part of the problem), on a mounted ext4 partition on the sd card. I managed to cross compile install most of the stuff I need to build locally there. I installed the latest release of everything.
And now time to make something in place without cross compilation.
I decided to make and install inetutils-1.9.4.
The configure runs just fine, but when I try to make, it just fails without saying a thing:
# make
make all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory '/tmp/inetutils_build'
Making all in lib
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1491: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/inetutils_build'
make: *** [Makefile:1428: all] Error 2
So I looked at the generated makefile and it contains this rule:
$(am__recursive_targets):
#fail=; \
if $(am__make_keepgoing); then \
failcom='fail=yes'; \
else \
failcom='exit 1'; \
fi; \
dot_seen=no; \
target=`echo $# | sed s/-recursive//`; \
case "$#" in \
distclean-* | maintainer-clean-*) list='$(DIST_SUBDIRS)' ;; \
*) list='$(SUBDIRS)' ;; \
esac; \
for subdir in $$list; do \
echo "Making $$target in $$subdir"; \
if test "$$subdir" = "."; then \
dot_seen=yes; \
local_target="$$target-am"; \
else \
local_target="$$target"; \
fi; \
($(am__cd) $$subdir && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) $$local_target) \
|| eval $$failcom; \
done; \
if test "$$dot_seen" = "no"; then \
$(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) "$$target-am" || exit 1; \
fi; test -z "$$fail"
After inserting some echos I have found that the line with the $(am__cd)... fails, and the ored expression runs which exits the script with failure. So I attempted to find out which command fails there, and inserted some echos within the parenthesis, like this:
(echo "1" && $(am__cd) $$subdir && echo "2" && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) $$local_target && echo "3") \
|| eval $$failcom; \
Now it prints:
make all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory '/tmp/inetutils_build'
Making all in lib
1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1491: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/inetutils_build'
make: *** [Makefile:1428: all] Error 2
However I wanted to make sure the echo doesn't fail, so I added another one.
(echo "1" && echo "1b" && $(am__cd) $$subdir && echo "2" && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) $$local_target && echo "3") \
|| eval $$failcom; \
When I tried it. It again prints just 1.
I didn't give it up just yet.
I wanted to make sure echo really fails within the script.
So I tried adding new statements into the script, before the problematic command:
(echo "A" && echo "B"); \
(echo "X" || echo "Y"); \
echo "N" && echo "M"; \
(echo "C" && echo "D"); \
It prints:
A
X
Y
N
M
C
D
Then it prints
1
1b
2
and starts building!
I'm totally puzzled here. Why does the first two parenthesized expressions fail, but not the last one?
In fact even writing (true) || echo "ooops" fails at first, but not when I paste it below the ored X Y parenthesis. Apparently the ored parenthesis "fixes" it, whatever state it got stuck on.
What is going on?
It should be noted I cannot reproduce this at the shell prompt but only the statements inserted into the makefile does this.
EDIT:
By removing the # from the beginning it echoes back the command but nothing else, no errors:
fail=; \
if (target_option=k; case ${target_option-} in ?) ;; *) echo "am__make_running_with_option: internal error: invalid" "target option '${target_option-}' specified" >&2; exit 1;; esac; has_opt=no; sane_makeflags=$MAKEFLAGS; if { if test -z '1'; then false; elif test -n 'arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi'; then true; elif test -n '4.2' && test -n '/tmp/inetutils_build'; then true; else false; fi; }; then sane_makeflags=$MFLAGS; else case $MAKEFLAGS in *\\[\ \ ]*) bs=\\; sane_makeflags=`printf '%s\n' "$MAKEFLAGS" | sed "s/$bs$bs[$bs $bs ]*//g"`;; esac; fi; skip_next=no; strip_trailopt () { flg=`printf '%s\n' "$flg" | sed "s/$1.*$//"`; }; for flg in $sane_makeflags; do test $skip_next = yes && { skip_next=no; continue; }; case $flg in *=*|--*) continue;; -*I) strip_trailopt 'I'; skip_next=yes;; -*I?*) strip_trailopt 'I';; -*O) strip_trailopt 'O'; skip_next=yes;; -*O?*) strip_trailopt 'O';; -*l) strip_trailopt 'l'; skip_next=yes;; -*l?*) strip_trailopt 'l';; -[dEDm]) skip_next=yes;; -[JT]) skip_next=yes;; esac; case $flg in *$target_option*) has_opt=yes; break;; esac; done; test $has_opt = yes); then \
failcom='fail=yes'; \
else \
failcom='exit 1'; \
fi; \
dot_seen=no; \
target=`echo all-recursive | sed s/-recursive//`; \
case "all-recursive" in \
distclean-* | maintainer-clean-*) list='lib libinetutils libtelnet libicmp libls src telnet telnetd ftp ftpd talk talkd whois ping ifconfig doc man tests' ;; \
*) list='lib libinetutils libtelnet libicmp libls src telnet telnetd ftp ftpd talk talkd whois ping ifconfig doc man tests' ;; \
esac; \
for subdir in $list; do \
echo "Making $target in $subdir"; \
if test "$subdir" = "."; then \
dot_seen=yes; \
local_target="$target-am"; \
else \
local_target="$target"; \
fi; \
(CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd $subdir && make $local_target) \
|| eval $failcom; \
done; \
if test "$dot_seen" = "no"; then \
make "$target-am" || exit 1; \
fi; test -z "$fail"
EDIT 2:
Thanks for the tips, I added set -x to the beginning of the rule. These are the commands:
+ fail=
+ target_option=k
+ case ${target_option-} in
+ has_opt=no
+ sane_makeflags=w
+ test -z 1
+ test -n arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi
+ true
+ sane_makeflags=-w
+ skip_next=no
+ for flg in $sane_makeflags
+ test no = yes
+ case $flg in
+ case $flg in
+ test no = yes
+ failcom='exit 1'
+ dot_seen=no
++ echo all-recursive
++ sed s/-recursive//
+ target=all
+ case "all-recursive" in
+ list='lib libinetutils libtelnet libicmp libls src telnet telnetd ftp ftpd talk talkd whois ping ifconfig doc man tests'
+ for subdir in $list
+ echo 'Making all in lib'
Making all in lib
+ test lib = .
+ local_target=all
+ CDPATH=:
+ eval exit 1
++ exit 1

Answer 1

Did you put SHELL := /bin/bash at the top of your makefile? Otherwise, make(1) tends to invoke /bin/sh as the shell, which has very different properties.