Also this: >The explicit list of phony targets, written separately from the recipe definitions, also introduces the risk of accidentally defining a new non-pho

Also this: >The explicit list of phony targets, written separately from the recipe definitions, also introduces the risk of accidentally defining a new non-phony target. ... seems to think the only way to define phony targets is: .PHONY: foo bar foo: ... bar: ... ... which has the problem that bar's definition is distant from its declaration as a phony target. But this form is equivalent and doesn't have that problem: .PHONY: foo foo: ... .PHONY: bar bar: ... This ability to declare dependencies of a target over multiple definitions isn't even unique to `.PHONY`.