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## Conditionals that Test Flags

You can write a conditional that tests `make` command flags such as ``-t'` by using the variable `MAKEFLAGS` together with the `findstring` function (see section Functions for String Substitution and Analysis). This is useful when `touch` is not enough to make a file appear up to date.

The `findstring` function determines whether one string appears as a substring of another. If you want to test for the ``-t'` flag, use ``t'` as the first string and the value of `MAKEFLAGS` as the other.

For example, here is how to arrange to use ``ranlib -t'` to finish marking an archive file up to date:

    archive.a: ...
    ifneq (,$(findstring t,$(MAKEFLAGS)))
            +touch archive.a
            +ranlib -t archive.a
    else
            ranlib archive.a
    endif

The ``+'` prefix marks those command lines as "recursive" so that they will be executed despite use of the ``-t'` flag. See section Recursive Use of `make`.

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