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## The `shell` Function

The `shell` function is unlike any other function except the `wildcard` function (see section The Function `wildcard`) in that it communicates with the world outside of `make`.

The `shell` function performs the same function that backquotes (```'`) perform in most shells: it does command expansion. This means that it takes an argument that is a shell command and returns the output of the command. The only processing `make` does on the result, before substituting it into the surrounding text, is to convert each newline or carriage-return / newline pair to a single space. It also removes the trailing (carriage-return and) newline, if it's the last thing in the result.

The commands run by calls to the `shell` function are run when the function calls are expanded. In most cases, this is when the makefile is read in. The exception is that function calls in the commands of the rules are expanded when the commands are run, and this applies to `shell` function calls like all others.

Here are some examples of the use of the `shell` function:

    contents := $(shell cat foo)

sets `contents` to the contents of the file ``foo'`, with a space (rather than a newline) separating each line.

    files := $(shell echo *.c)

sets `files` to the expansion of ``*.c'`. Unless `make` is using a very strange shell, this has the same result as ``$(wildcard *.c)'`.

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