dealing with whitespaces

[Eduardo Suarez-Santana]

Consider next four scripts:
#############################
mkdir nowhitespace
touch nowhitespace/file.ext
cat <<EOF | tr "=" "\t" >Makefile
file.ext: nowhitespace/file.ext
address@hidden It works!
EOF
make file.ext
#############################
mkdir a\ whitespace
touch a\ whitespace/file.ext
cat <<EOF | tr "=" "\t" >Makefile
file.ext: a\ whitespace/file.ext
address@hidden It works!
EOF
make file.ext
#############################
mkdir nowhitespace2
touch nowhitespace2/file.ext
cat <<EOF | tr "=" "\t" >Makefile
%.ext: nowhitespace2/%.ext
address@hidden It works!
EOF
make file.ext
#############################
mkdir a\ whitespace2
touch a\ whitespace2/file.ext
cat <<EOF | tr "=" "\t" >Makefile
%.ext: a\ whitespace2/%.ext
address@hidden It works!
EOF
make file.ext
#############################

I can't get the last one to work. What's wrong with the white space?

Thanks,
-Eduardo