Problems wih make file code - makefile

Question

When i run the code below , it give me an error message which is :
cc1: warning: main.c: not a directory [enabled by default]
frequent.o: file not recognized: File format not recognized
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: * [main] Error 1
CC = gcc
CPPFLAGS = -I
main: main.c headers.h sortt.o frequent.o
#$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $^ -o $#
sortt.o: headers.h sortt.c
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
frequent.o: headers.h frequent_word.c search_similar_word.o
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $< -o $#

Answer 1

You have a lot of errors in your rules. Why is frequent.o listing search_similar_word.o as a prerequisite? There's no reason that you can't build frequent.o before or at the same time as search_similar_word.o.
Also, you are using $< in the compilation line which expands to the first prerequisite, but the first prerequisite for frequent.o is headers.h, so you're trying to compile headers.h which is wrong: you want to compile frequent_word.c.
Ditto for sortt.o.
It's also very odd to name your object files with different names than the source files.
In your CPPFLAGS you're listing a -I flag but you've given it no argument: that flag takes a directory as an argument.
And finally, you are using the -c flag when you're trying to link the final object (I'm assuming the comment character # is just an artifact of debugging); that's not right as the -c flag tells the compiler to generate an object file, and to not link the final object.
Your makefile should look something like this:
CC = gcc
CPPFLAGS = -I .
main: main.c headers.h sortt.o frequent.o
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $^ -o $#
sortt.o: sortt.c headers.h
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
frequent.o: frequent_word.c headers.h
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
I have no idea what to do with search_similar_word.o since it doesn't seem to be used anywhere in your build.