Look at the last paragraph of the linked site: For completeness it should be noted that GNU make is able to express rules with multiple output files using patt

Look at the last paragraph of the linked site: For completeness it should be noted that GNU make is able to express rules with multiple output files using pattern rules The problem with this approach (aside from the fact that it's specific to GNU make) is that you need a shared (non-empty) stem in all output files; however, the following workaround appears to work: foo bar baz : % : .dummy/../% %/../foo %/../bar %/../baz : quux @sleep 2 touch foo bar baz