how to represent a character class of targets?

[Robert P. J. Day]

  i'm sure there's a simple way to do this, but i'm just not seeing
it.  is there a way to establish a list of dependencies of other
(possibly non-existent) targets based on a character class pattern?

  rationale:  i'm looking at the makefile for sqlite and, in the
makefile, "all" has a dependency of "sqlite3.h", whose rule builds
that specific header file, which many of the source files include
explicitly.  so, obviously, that rule has to be invoked to just create
sqlite3.h. i'm assuming that, when there's an sqlite 4, that rule will
change accordingly.

  now, given that the current makefile really sucks, i want to write
my own replacement makefile but make it version-independent.  i'd like
to have some sort of rule like:

sqlite_header_file:  sqlite[345].h

or something at least as general.  i don't want to have to figure out
the current version, i just want to say, "there's a rule in this
makefile *somewhere* of this general form -- go find it and process
it."

  thoughts?

rday