GNU Make 3.80 behaving differently from GNU Make 3.71

[Kannan S]

I am noticing a peculiar behaviour the way gnu make handles a make file that I am using. 

I am pasting snippets from a makefile that I feel would be useful to determine the cause



ifndef OPENCLASSBUILDOPTIONS
  OPENCLASSBUILDOPTIONS := --debug--objmodel-compat
endif

ifeq (--nonansi, $(findstring --nonansi, $(openclass_api)))
  DEFS += -DIC_NON_ANSI_BUILD_COMPILER
  ifeq (aix, $(findstring aix, $(OPENCLASSBUILDHOS)))
    OPENCLASSBUILDOPTIONS += --exportall--linklibrary
  endif
endif

  ifneq (--objmodel-ibm, $(findstring --objmodel-ibm, $(OPENCLASSBUILDOPTIONS)))
    $(testfw_build_export_file):: $(testfw_srcdir)/$(testfw_extra_export_file)
        cat $^ >> $@

    $(collect_build_export_file):: $(collect_srcdir)/$(collect_extra_export_file)
        cat $^ >> $@
  endif


I have used the makefile with GNU Make 3.71 & 3.80. When I use
3.71, I believe the above code gets executed and appends all the
symbols, which eventually gets picked up by the linker and my compile
goes through. The same makefile creates problem when I use gnumake 3.80
and eventually the linker complains on missing symbols.

Am I doing something wrong here?

Would appreciate your thoughts.

Sincerely,
Kannan