make is setting exit code to 0 when gcc command fails

[David Aldrich]

Hi

I want to call make from a Python script and check make's exit code to decide 
whether the make succeeded.

If I deliberately introduce a syntax error into one of my C files, make calls 
gcc to build the file, as expected, and an error is reported as text in bash.  
However, the exit code (checked using echo $?) returns 0.  If I run the gcc 
command from the bash command line, the exit code is 1.

Why might make return 0 instead of 1 in the case of this compiler error?

I am running gnu make 3.81 on Centos 5, with a bash shell.

Best regards

David