GNUMake handles UTF-8 just fine. I was able to replace spaces (character 0x20) with non-breaking spaces (character 0xA0) and it just worked (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16527084).
Sorry, didn’t mean to imply it couldn’t; just pointing out that it’s important to handle despite the way the parent suggests it’s a ridiculous expectation.
