Makefile woes

Any makefile experts that can spare a moment? Having problems with makefiles
on Windows (using GNU make under Cygwin) and can't seem to figure it out or
even how to google it. 

If anybody can point me to a mailing list or forum that is more appropriate,
please let me know. All the lists I found so far aren't helpful.

1. I want to check for the existence of a directory, and if it doesn't exist
create it.

Most of the linux/unix examples do something like:

.PHONY: $(SUBDIR)
$(SUBDIR):
	@[ -d $(SUBDIR) ] || mkdir -p $(SUBDIR)


Obviously the mkdir needs to become md, but it seems to me that the brackets
and the or'ing are using the shell to test for the directory? I don't know
shell commands at all and it's frustrating trying to figure out this stuff.

2. I want to do some printf style debugging beyond the -d makefile switch.
Something like:

<some makefile commands>
echo "You got here"
<some more makefile commands>

But this doesn't work. What is the way/format to output messages anywhere
during the make build?

Any help appreciated...

Mr.b



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