Pfthb

If I have a list of files:

files := xx_foo1.c yy_foo2.c zz_bar1.c aa_bb_bar2.c

Is there any way of removing everything up to the last underscore from the list to get foo1.c foo2.c bar1.c bar2.c?

I was looking into using patsubst, but I would need two%'s -- one for the first part to be ignored, and one for the last part to be kept.

It can be done but it's a little gross. You want something like this:

final := $(foreach F,$(files),$(word $(words $(subst _, ,$F)),$(subst _, ,$F)))

This says, for each element in files we convert the _ to a space, now we can use our per-word functions to manipulate it: extract the last word in the list of words.

ETA
ReAl points out below that this can be simplified using lastword:

final := $(foreach F,$(files),$(lastword $(subst _, ,$F)))

As I see it you are using the underscore as separating character between hierarchical names. GNUmake is well equipped to work with such a scheme if the character is /: file name functions.

So your example should simply boil down to

$(notdir $(subst _,/,$(files))

Use the external program — sed — and enjoy all its power

files := xx_foo1.c yy_foo2.c zz_bar1.c aa_bb_bar2.c
f := `echo $(files) | sed -e "s/[[:alnum:]]*_//g"`

all:
 echo $(f)