The VPATH variable in makefile is used to indicate search paths. But what exactly does the "V" in it stand for?
The value of the make variable VPATH specifies a list of directories that make should search. Most often, the directories are expected to contain prerequisite files that are not in the current directory; however, make uses VPATH as a search list for both prerequisites and targets of rules.
VPATH seems to be: virtual path
I found this link about: gcc_make
Which defines VPATH like this:
>**Virtual Path - VPATH & vpath**
>You can use VPATH (uppercase) to specify the directory to search for dependencies and target files. For example,
># Search for dependencies and targets from "src" and "include" directories
># The directories are separated by space
VPATH = src include
>You can also use vpath (lowercase) to be more precise about the file type and its search directory. For example,
># Search for .c files in "src" directory; .h files in "include" directory
># The pattern matching character '%' matches filename without the extension
>vpath %.c src
>vpath %.h include
This second link confirm that:
VPATH stands for Virtual path