I have this make file

all : CONFIG=config.ini
debug : CONFIG=config-debug.ini

CONFIG_FILES := $(shell python parse_config.py -i $(CONFIG))

all: $(CONFIG) $(CONFIG_FILES)
    echo $(CONFIG) $(CONFIG_FILES)

When I run make all it shows some python error saying -i option param is missing. So it seems $(CONFIG) is not going through shell function.

How can make all invoke python parse_config.py -i 'config.ini'?

same way make debug invoke python parse_config.py -i 'config-debug.ini'?

Update:

After running make all SHELL+=-x I get following output.

+ python parse_config.py -p static -i
usage: parse_config.py [-h] -i INPUT_JSB3 [-p PREFIX]
parse_config.py: error: argument -i: expected one argument

But after that I get

+ python parse_config.py -p static -i static/config.ini

And make seems to continue to work.

The problem is that this:

all : CONFIG=config.ini

all: $(CONFIG) $(CONFIG_FILES)
        ...

will not work. The value of target-specific variables are only available inside the recipe. You cannot use target-specific variables as prerequisites. That's also why it's not set within the $(CONFIG_FILES) variable when you use it in the prerequisites list.

You can do something like this:

CONFIG_FILES = $1 $(shell python parse_config.py -i $1)

all: $(call CONFIG_FILES,config.ini)
debug: $(call CONFIG_FILES,config-debug.ini)

perhaps. You could write it out explicitly. You could run a recursive make invocation overriding CONFIG_FILES. You could auto-generate included files. You could define some variables then use secondary expansion. There are a lot of ways to do this.

You just can't do it with target-specific variables in the prerequisites list.