Makefile : last resort match anything pattern - makefile

Question

According to the GNU make guide, "The rules you write take precedence over those that are built in. Note however, that a rule whose prerequisites actually exist or are mentioned always takes priority over a rule with prerequisites that must be made by chaining other implicit rules."
So I wrote this testing makefile to do a little experiment (GNUmakefile is the name of this testing makefile) :
% ::
#echo "last resort implicit rule is working"
.DEFAULT_GOAL = src/hello.o
src/hello.o :
GNUmakefile : ;#used to prevent remaking this makefile, although in this case it is unnecessary.
My file organization is illustrated as the following :
GNUmakefile(#ordinary file)
src(#directory)
----hello.c(#ordinary file)
I was expecting it to output "last resort implicit rule is working", since src/hello.o will match the target pattern % :: and this is a terminal match anything implicit rule. According to the Implicit rule search algorithm specified in GNU make guide, this rule should apply.
However, when I run make , it output cc -c -o src/hello.o src/hello.c.
I figured out that in fact src/hello.o was matched against the built-in implicit rule. When I run make -r , it output "last resort implicit rule is working". And the output of make -d attested this.
But I think this behavior is contradicting what is specified in GUN make guide.
Can anyone help?
By the way, I read the last resort rule in GUN make guide, it says "So such a rule’s recipe is used for all targets and prerequisites that have no recipe of their own and for which no other implicit rule applies.". Is this the solution to my question? I doubt that, because I think this depends on whether last resort rule is defined and where the last resort rule is defined because orders matters when searching for implicit rule using the algorithm specified in GNU make guide.

Answer 1

It works fine with some ancient make at my workplace...
[teve#madar mktest]$ tree
.
├── GNUmakefile
└── src
└── hello.c
1 directory, 2 files
[teve#madar mktest]$ cat GNUmakefile
% ::
#echo "last resort implicit rule is working"
.DEFAULT_GOAL = src/hello.o
src/hello.o :
GNUmakefile : ;#blablabla
[teve#madar mktest]$ make
last resort implicit rule is working
[teve#madar mktest]$ make --version
GNU Make 3.81
[...]
... and it does not work with one-step less ancient make:
[teve#madar mktest]$ make
cc -c -o src/hello.o src/hello.c
[gergelyc#sauron mktest]$ make --version
GNU Make 3.82
[...]
Given that the current versions are 4.x, I feel super lucky to have exactly these two versions with the behaviour-change.
I tried to look at occurrences of implicit, built, order, last and match in a changelog ending with 3.82, but I have not found anything obvious.
Canceling the built-in rule with an empty %o : %c works, by the way.