Colons in targets/dependencies

[Nick Moffitt]

I'm trying to develop a build system that downloads upstream source
code off of the Internet, but I'm having trouble setting up URLs as
targets.  Here's a rough outline of what I want to do:

downloads/%: $(PROTOCOL)\://$(DOWNLOAD_SITE)/%

http\://%:
        cd downloads
        wget $@

(and other rules for different protocols follow)

but as you can see, I have some trouble with colons in the target and
dependency areas.  How do I safely do this?  I've tried backwhacking
the colons, but that has inconsistent results.  I have checked both my
1998 printing of the FSF make book as well as the current info files
but haven't found my answer.

I can only assume that this is possible because the docs refer to old
DOS-style path naming (such as "C:\SRC\FOO.H").

So what are the rules for escaping colons?

I'm using version 3.78.1 and 3.79.1 on the two systems I have.


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