Question: I got this error while (re)building, using cygwin make.exe version :3.81.

```
Error : *** target pattern contains no `%'.

```

Answer: 
Most likely due to the presence of a colon following a drive letter. For example consider

```
build : $(NativeHeaders)/*

```

If 

```
NativeHeaders=../../../cpp/generated

```

then all is well, but

```
NativeHeaders=C:/dev/folder/cpp/generated

```

results in the error that you get.
Try this if you're running Eclipse C/C++ and referencing files from Cygwin under Windows, make sure c:/cygwin/bin or c:/cygwin64/bin comes after your preferred compiler tools in your Windows Path environment.

Example:
 Path = ;C:\yagarto\bin;C:\yagarto-tools\bin;C:\cygwin64\bin;

After making the changes, exit Eclipse and restart for it to take effect (simply restarting Eclipse without exiting won't fix the problem.