r - Expanding directories in variables with make -

i have makefile (below) project i've been given folder of "raw data" - set of files colleague, , i've made r script analysis on of files. want makefile assign directory variable rawdir, , use variable in specifying make dependencies of r script, , command line argument script. in shell, directories spaces expanded when using double quotes , curly braces, not know if correct make files, following makefile message make: *** no rule make target""../raw', needed pulls'. stop. not think file path assigned rawdir being expanded properly.

thanks.

rawdir="../raw data/fc project raw data"  .phony: dirs  pulls: dirs "${rawdir}/pm_fc_dnds_cleandata.csv" "${rawdir}/fc1_seqs.fasta" "${rawdir}/fc2_seqs.fasta" "${rawdir}/pm1_seqs.fasta" "${rawdir}/pm2_seqs.fasta"     rscript allele_pulling.r "${rawdir}/" "${rawdir}/pm_fc_dnds_cleandata.csv"  dirs:      mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/fc     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/pm     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/both     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/fc1pm1     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/fc1pm2     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/fc2pm1     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/unaligned/fc2pm2     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/fc     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/pm     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/both     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/fc1pm1     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/fc1pm2     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/fc2pm1     mkdir -p -v pulled_allelic_pairs/aligned/fc2pm2 

in general spaces in pathnames not supported make. @ least functions in gnu make handle spaces escaped \.

the following should work in use case:

rawdir="../raw\ data/fc\ project\ raw\ data"