Variables in makefiles are generally global. However, target-specific variables can be defined and are limited in scope to the rule they were defined for and shadow global variables of the same name. They are define in a line immediatly before the rule listing the target, followed by a colon and the variable definition:

For example, given the follwing makefile

test = not_fnord

%.out:  test = $*
%.out: 
    echo "Content: $(test)" > $@

calling

make fnord.out

creates the file fnord.out with the following content:

Content: fnord

not

Content: not_fnord