make questions

[SysTom]

Hello,

I have two questions re: make:

1) Is it possible to set a variable from the results of the execution
of a program?  My makefile needs to run on both Linux and Win32 so I
cannot have a dummy target that exports an environment variable.

2) Is it possible to set a make option from a variable?  For example, I
would like to be able to do something like:

   ifeq ($(GATES),1)
    ISHKABIBBLE = foo
    ...
    MAKE            = $(MAKE) -B
  endif

where the MAKE = $(MAKE) -B' forces a recompile of everything when
GATES is set to 1.

Thanks, SysTom