backslash-newline mishandled in some commands

[Paul Eggert]

With the attached Makefile in an otherwise-empty directory, GNU 'make' 4.2.1 
outputs:

V=$(expr " " : '\(.*[^ ]\)') && printf '%s\n' "$V"
make: *** [Makefile:2: this-should-work] Error 1

It should output:

V=$(expr " " : '\(.*[^\
]\)') && printf '%s\n' "$V"


(The line after the 'printf' line consists of a single space.)

The problem is that GNU 'make' transforms a newline into a space, even though 
POSIX says the newline should be preserved; see the last paragraph of "Makefile 
Syntax" 
<http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/make.html#tag_20_76_13_01>.

Solaris 10 /usr/ccs/bin/make works correctly (if SHELL=/bin/bash is also 
specified). Also, 'make this-works' works correctly with GNU 'make'.

This bug has been in GNU 'make' for some time; I can reproduce it with version 
3.81.

Makefile
Description: Text document