make: Nothing to be done for 'ALWAYS'
 

I recently installed Cygwin on my Windows XP.
when i try to use 'make' to produce executable programs,
$ make
it displays the following error message:
make: Nothing to be done 'ALWAYS'.
I donnot know how to fix this error. Can anyone help me?
my working directory is /home/administrator/code,
there are two makefiles in this directory, one is Makefile, the other is _Makefile, and the content of Makefile as following:
===============================================================
# MAKEFILE FOR `code'
include ./ansi/MMakefile
code_spiel code_ez codemodify2 codemodify codeeig mncN code5 code6 code4 code4r RMtest RMtest23 GH GH2 RA gallagerS gallagerA gallager gallagerS02: ALWAYS
cd $(bin) ; make $@
tar:
tar cvf ../pub/code/code.tar ./*.c ./*.h ./*_var ./*_var6 ./commander.p ./Makefile ./ansi/*.c ./ansi/*.h ./ansi/Makefile ./ansi/MMakefile ./_Makefile ./ansi/_Makefile ansi/cMakefile ./README0 ansi/lgpl.txt ansi/gpl.txt ansi/README0
gzip -f ../pub/code/code.tar


nn_var_usg.c: nn_var commander.p
commander.p nn_var
fe_var_usg.c: fe_var commander.p
commander.p fe_var
fe_var6_usg.c: fe_var6 commander.p
commander.p fe_var6
fed2_var_usg.c: fed2_var commander.p
commander.p fed2_var
dc_var_usg.c: dc_var commander.p
commander.p dc_var
dc_var6_usg.c: dc_var6 commander.p
commander.p dc_var6
code4_var_usg.c: code4_var commander.p
commander.p code4_var
code5_var_usg.c: code5_var commander.p
commander.p code5_var
code_ez_var_usg.c: code_ez_var commander.p
commander.p code_ez_var
GAd_var_usg.c: GAd_var commander.p
commander.p GAd_var
bnd_var_usg.c: bnd_var commander.p
commander.p bnd_var
codemod_var_usg.c: codemod_var commander.p
commander.p codemod_var
codeeig_var_usg.c: codeeig_var commander.p
commander.p codeeig_var
bndi_var_usg.c: bndi_var commander.p
commander.p bndi_var
RMbnd_var_str.h: RMbnd_var commander.p
commander.p RMbnd_var
RMdc_var_str.h: RMdc_var commander.p
commander.p RMdc_var
RAbnd_var_str.h: RAbnd_var commander.p
commander.p RAbnd_var
RAdc_var_str.h: RAdc_var commander.p
commander.p RAdc_var

Maybe you could tell us what it is exactly that you are trying to compile; then, maybe someone who has built that application before, can give some input.

Also, the majority of software that needs to be compiled for Linux (and I suppose for Cygwin) needs to be "configured" before it is compiled. Is there a file called "configure" inside the source-code directory? If so, try:

shell$ ./configure --help

and see what is produced.

If there's no configure script, then again, please tell us what you're trying to build, and where you got it. Incidentally, is there any documentation, help files, README files, INSTALL files, and this sort of stuff, included with this package? Have you read it, if so?

Sasha

thanks, Tgirl,
I donwloaded the source code file 'code.tar.gz' from this site :
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/m...odesFiles.html
the source code links is as,
Source code for lots of code-related functions: including "code6" for making Gallager codes; "mncN" and "gallager" for sum-product decoding and "fe" for decoding using variational free energy minimization (not the best decoder; sum-product is better) Before making executables, you may need to create some directories in both . and ./ansi thus:

mkdir bin$ARC; cd bin$ARC ; ln -s ../_Makefile Makefile ; cd ..
OR for example:
mkdir bini386; cd bini386; ln -s ../_Makefile Makefile ; cd ..

i decompressed this code.tar.gz ,created a directory "code" and put these source files into it.
Before compiling this project i have simply configured as the author describes, but when i try to make,
it displayed the error information as i described in this thread top.
In fact i checked the dependency in /code/Makefile, and found it includes a file as following,
include ./ansi/MMakefile
and then i opend that MMakefile , a very short file as below
# "MMakefile"
# fundamental Makefile included by many others
# define $(bin) to be binsun4 etc.
#
# this makes things happen
ALWAYS:

bin = bin$(ARC)
I suspected the rule format is wrong, so i corrected it and save it as
ALWAYS:
bin = bin$(ARC) # add a Tab before the command line
when i returned back to /code and tried 'make' again, it dispalyed a different ,but still error info and stop:
make: execvp:bin: Permission denied.
make: ***[ALWAYS] Error 127.
I believe the ALWAYS rule is the trouble ,however, i donnot know how to get rid of it yet.
i have suffered from this project for several days.
Many thanks.

heinzstoic