GNU make call function with multiple arguments and multiple commands - function

Question

I am trying to write a GNU make call function (example below) which has multiple shell commands to execute, such that it can be called with different arguments.
shell_commands = $(shell echo $(1); ls -ltr $(2))
try:
$(call shell_commands,$(FILE1),$(FILE2))
1) Is above the correct way to write a call function with multiple commands? By using a semi-colon to separate them? To make it readable, I write my targets as shown below. Is there a similar way to write a call function?
shell_commands:
echo $(1)
ls -ltr $(2)
2) I get this error from make when I execute make -B try. It looks like it is trying to execute /home/user/file1. But why?
make: execvp: /home/user/file1: Permission denied
make: *** [try] Error 127
3) Is it possible to pass variable number of parameters to a call function? Like pass in just the second parameter and not the first one.
$(call shell_commands,,$(FILE2))
I tried google-ing, searching on SO, and looking on gnu.org but I did not get any solutions. Will appreciate any answers or pointers to any resources which document call function with multiple optional arguments and commands.

Answer 1

Question 1: No, this is not right. The shell make function should NEVER be used inside a recipe: the recipe is already running in the shell, so why would you run another shell? It's just confusing. Second, it's generally recommended to use && between multiple commands in a recipe, so that if the first command fails the entire command will immediately fail, rather than continuing on and perhaps succeeding. Of course, that is not always correct either, it depends on what you're trying to do.
Question 2: This happens because the shell make function is like backticks in the shell: it expands to the output printed by the shell command it runs. Your shell command that make runs is:
echo $(1); ls -ltr $(2)
(where, one assumes, $1 expands to /home/user/file1) which prints the string /home/user/file1. After the expansion, that string is substituted into the recipe and make tries to run that recipe, giving the error you see above.
You want this, most likely:
shell_commands = echo $(1) && ls -ltr $(2)
try:
$(call shell_commands,$(FILE1),$(FILE2))
Now the call expands to the actual text, not an invocation of make's shell function, and then that text is run as the recipe.
Question 3: Sure, just using empty parameters means that the variable $1 (in this case) expands to the empty string.