why can't gnumake utilize non-filename pattern rules?

Randy Yates <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.gnu.utils
Organization The Universal Church of Christ
Message-ID <[email protected]>
If I have the rule

% : gen%

(without a rule), make won't work - it says "no rule to build file $*".
If I say 

% : gen%
.PHONY : %

make won't work - it simply skips the pattern rule.

I want to make a dependency chain based on a pattern rule, without the
pattern rule target necessarily being a file. Why can't I do this? Or
how could I do this?
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "I met someone who looks alot like you,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %             she does the things you do, 
%%% 919-577-9882                %                     but she is an IBM."
%%%% <[email protected]>           %        'Yours Truly, 2095', *Time*, ELO   
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr
lmpx.com only provides a reader for public news (NNTP) servers. It is not affiliated with the servers or forums shown here and is not responsible for the content of articles, which is written by their respective authors.