makefile - How does "make" app know default target to build if no target is specified?

Question

Most Linux apps are compiled with:

make
make install clean

As I understand it, the make command takes names of build targets as arguments. So for example install is usually a target that copies some files to standard locations, and clean is a target that removes temporary files.

But what target will make build if no arguments are specified (e.g. the first command in my example)?

Answer 1

By default, it begins by processing the first target that does not begin with a . aka the default goal; to do that, it may have to process other targets - specifically, ones the first target depends on.

The GNU Make Manual covers all this stuff, and is a surprisingly easy and informative read.