GNU make conditional function $(if ...) inside a user-defined function always evaluates to true - makefile

Question

I am trying to write a make function to touch/create an empty file and/or set the permissions, user and group, where possible, or warn if not. However, every conditional check within my function seems to evaluate to true.
The essentials of my Makefile are
INSTALL_USER := fileUser
INSTALL_GROUP := fileGroup
.PHONY: test
test:
$(call touchFile,~/test.ini)
define touchFile
$(eval fileName := $(strip $(1)))
-touch $(fileName)
-chmod -c 664 $(fileName)
$(info filename info $(fileName))
$(info $(shell stat -c "%a %U:%G" $(fileName)))
$(if ifeq "foo" "bar", #echo match is broken, #echo match works)
$(if ifneq "foo" "bar", #echo match works, #echo match is broken)
$(if ifneq ($(shell stat -c %a $(fileName)),664), $(warning Error - $(fileName) does not have expected permissions of 664))
-chgrp -c $(INSTALL_GROUP) $(fileName)
$(if ifneq ($(shell stat -c %G $(fileName)),$(INSTALL_GROUP)), $(warning Error - $(fileName) does not belong to $(INSTALL_GROUP) group))
-chown -c $(INSTALL_USER) $(fileName)
$(if ifneq ($(shell stat -c %U $(fileName)),$(INSTALL_USER)), $(warning Error - $(fileName) does not belong to $(INSTALL_USER) user))
endef
Running make test outputs
filename info ~/test.ini
664 myUserName:myGroup
Makefile:7: Error - ~/test.ini does not have expected permissions of 664
Makefile:7: Error - ~/test.ini does not belong to common group
Makefile:7: Error - ~/test.ini does not belong to netserve user
touch ~/test.ini
chmod -c 664 ~/test.ini
match is broken
match works
chgrp -c fileGroup ~/test.ini
changed group of `/home/myUserName/test.ini' to fileGroup
chown -c fileUser ~/test.ini
chown: changing ownership of `/home/myUserName/test.ini': Operation not permitted
make: [test] Error 1 (ignored)
I've considered/tried the following:
$(if ...) is evaluated at "compile-time", before the function is called with a parameter. But, the hard-coded ifeq "foo" "bar" also gives an invalid result. Additionally, $(info ...) correctly evaluates $(fileName) at "compile-time".
The documentation doesn't actually give examples, so in addition to $(if ifeq...), I also tried $(ifeq ...), which seemed to be ignored.
"Non-functional" if (i.e., the ifeq without the $(if...)) inside a function gives /bin/sh: ifeq: command not found.
Can someone help identify why my conditionals aren't behaving as I expect (or why I'm expecting the wrong thing)?
Caveat: I know there are still bugs to be worked out if the file doesn't exist, but that should be trivial compared to this hurdle.

Answer 1

$(if ...) conditional function evaluates to true when the first argument passed to it is non-empty. In you case the condition is literal text: ifeq "foo" "bar", which is, obviously, non-empty.
ifeq/ifneq conditionals are in fact directives, not functions. They can't be used inside variable definition and in functions.
Back to your example, to test string for equality inside the condition use functions like filter and findstring:
$(if $(filter foo,bar),#echo match is broken,#echo match works)
$(if $(filter-out foo,bar),#echo match works,#echo match is broken)
BTW this could be also turned into an inline form for better readability:
#echo match $(if $(filter foo,bar),is broken,works)
#echo match $(if $(filter-out foo,bar),works,is broken)

Answer 2

I faced this problem and I found you can use the result of "filter" function in the "condition" part of "if" function. Here is an example useful for opening a pdf either in Linux (with "evince"), or in OSX with "open")
uname :=$(shell uname -s)
is_darwin :=$(filter Darwin,$(uname))
viewpdf :=$(if $(is_darwin), open, evince)

Answer 3

You seem to be misunderstanding the way $(if works. From the make info docs:
$(if CONDITION,THEN-PART[,ELSE-PART])'
The `if' function provides support for conditional expansion in a
functional context
The first argument, CONDITION, first has all preceding and
trailing whitespace stripped, then is expanded. If it expands to
any non-empty string, then the condition is considered to be true.
If it expands to an empty string, the condition is considered to
be false.
In all your examples, your condition is something like ifeq SOMETHING OTHERTHING -- which is a non-empty string (from the ifeq irrespective of what the other things are), and so is treated as true.

Answer 4

if you want to check that your OS version is linux or other and if it is Linux then you want to print some message then u can follow this steps:
ifneq ($(TARGETOS), Linux)
target: server
#echo
#echo $(MSG) $(TARGETOS)
else
target: server
#echo $(MSG) $(TARGET)
endif
before I tried with ifeq but it has printed the else part only.
my OS is Linux, ubuntu.
If anyone found this answer should be modified, so they can give better answer for this also.