4.8 Special Built-in Target Names - .PRECIOUS
The targets which .PRECIOUS depends on are given the following special treatment: if make is killed or interrupted during the execution of their commands, the target is not deleted. See Section 5.6 [Interrupting or Killing make], page 49. Also, if the target is an intermediate file, it will not be deleted after it is no longer needed, as is normally done. See Section 10.4 [Chains of Implicit Rules], page 107. In this latter respect it overlaps with the .SECONDARY special target. You can also list the target pattern of an implicit rule (such as ‘%.o’) as a prerequisite file of the special target .PRECIOUS to preserve intermediate files created by rules whose target patterns match that file’s name.
The targets which .PRECIOUS depends on are given the following special treatment: if make is killed or interrupted during the execution of their commands, the target is not deleted. See Section 5.6 [Interrupting or Killing make], page 49. Also, if the target is an intermediate file, it will not be deleted after it is no longer needed, as is normally done. See Section 10.4 [Chains of Implicit Rules], page 107. In this latter respect it overlaps with the .SECONDARY special target. You can also list the target pattern of an implicit rule (such as ‘%.o’) as a prerequisite file of the special target .PRECIOUS to preserve intermediate files created by rules whose target patterns match that file’s name.
簡單的說就是當make在執行某個target的時候，如果make被kill或者被interrupted(ctrl+c)，那麼target file就會被刪除，如果加到.PRECIOUS就不會刪除。
brook@ubuntu:~$ more Makefile
#.PRECIOUS: obj/x.o
obj/x.o:
gcc -c x.c -o obj/x.o
sleep 5;
brook@ubuntu:~$ make -f Makefile
gcc -c x.c -o obj/x.o
sleep 5;
^Cmake: *** Deleting file `obj/x.o'
make: *** [obj/x.o] Interrupt
brook@ubuntu1:~$ more Makefile
.PRECIOUS: obj/x.o
obj/x.o:
gcc -c x.c -o obj/x.o
sleep 5;
brook@ubuntu1:~$ make -f Makefile
gcc -c x.c -o obj/x.o
sleep 5;
^Cmake: *** [obj/x.o] Interrupt
brook@ubuntu1:~/excerise/Make$
