The cook program requires variables to be defined before they are used, whereas make will default them to be empty. This is understood, and empty definitions are inserted as required.

Most of the builtin variables of GNU Make are understood.

Most of the builtin rules of classic make, GNU Make and BSD make are reproduced.

For best results there should be a blank line after every rule, so that there can be no confusion where one rule ends and a new one begins.

Builtin variables are defaulted from the environment, if an environment variable of the same name is set.

The GNU Make override variable assignment is understood.

The GNU Make ``+='' assignment is understood.

The GNU Make ``:='' variable assignment is understood.

Traditional make assignments are macros, they are expanded on use, rather than on assignment. The cook program has only variables. Assignment statements are re-arranged to ensure the correct results when variables are referenced.

Single and double suffix rules are understood. The .SUFFIXES rules are understood and honoured. Hint: if you want to suppress the builtin-recipes, use a .SUFFIXES rule with no dependencies.

The .PHONY rule is understood, and is translated into a set forced flag in appropriate recipes, except files from implicit recipes.

The .PRECIOUS rule is understood, and is translated into a set precious flag in the appropriate recipes, except files from implicit recipes.

The .DEFAULT rule is understood, and is translated into an implicit recipe.

The .IGNORE rule is understood, and is translated into a set errok statement.

The .SILENT rule is understood, and is translated into a set silent statement.

Most GNU Make functions are understood. The filter and filter-out functions only understand a single pattern. The sort function does not remove duplicates (wrap the stringset function around it if you need this).

The GNU Make static pattern rules are understood. They are translated into recipe predicates.

The GNU Make and BSD make include variants are understood.

The bizarre irregularities surrounding archive files in automatic variables and suffix rules are understood, and translated into consistent readable recipes. The make semantics are preserved.

The BSD make .CURDIR variable is understood, and translated to an equivalent expression. It cannot be assigned to.

The GNU Make and BSD make conditionals are understood, provided that they bracket whole segments of the makefile, and that these segments are syntactically valid. Cconditionals may also appear within rule body commands. Conditionals are not understood within the lines of a define.

The GNU Make define is understood, but its use as a kind of ``function definition'' is not understood.

The GNU Make export and unexport directives are understood.

The cook program tokenizes its input, whereas make does textual replacement. The shennanigans required to construct a make macro containing a single space are not understood. The translation will result in a cook variable which is empty.

References to automatic variables within macro definitions will not work.

The GNU Make foreach function is olny partially understood. This has no exact cook equivalent.

The GNU Make origin function is not understood. This has no cook equivalent.

The archive((member)) notation is not understood. These semantics are not available from cook.

The MAKEFILES and MAKELEVEL variables are not translated, If you wish to reproduce this functionality, you must edit the output.

The MAKEFLAGS and MFLAGS variables will be translated to use the Cook options function, which has a different range of values.

Many variants of make can use builtin rules to make the Makefile if it is absent. Cook is unable to cook the cookbook if it is absent.

Wildcards are not understood in rule targets, rule dependencies or include directives. If you want these, you will have to edit the output to use the [wildcard] function.

Home directory tildes (~) are not understood in targets and dependencies. If you want this, you will have to edit the output to use the [home] function.

The CW-lCIhome dependency is not understood to mean a library. If you want this, you will have to edit the output to use the [collect findlibs -lname] function.

The .EXPORT_ALL_VARIABLES rule is not understood. This has no cook equivalent.