Makefile error message - c

Question

I'm new to Stack Overflow. I'm currently having a hard time solving a simple problem.
In my shell/ directory, I have:
CVS/
include/
Makefile
obj
src
My problem occurs when trying to direct object files to be built in obj, but when I run make with the following code:
# Beginning of Makefile
OBJS = obj/shutil.o obj/parser.o obj/sshell.o
HEADER_FILES = include/shell.h include/parser.h
EXECUTABLE = simpleshell
CFLAGS = -Wall
CC = gcc
# End of configuration options
#What needs to be built to make all files and dependencies
all: $(EXECUTABLE)
#Create the main executable
$(EXECUTABLE): $(OBJS)
$(CC) -o $(EXECUTABLE) $(OBJS)
#Recursively build object files
%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
#Define dependencies for objects based on header files
#We are overly conservative here, parser.o should depend on parser.h only
$(OBJS) : $(HEADER_FILES)
clean:
-rm -f $(EXECUTABLE) obj/*.o
run: $(EXECUTABLE)
./$(EXECUTABLE)
tarball:
-rm -f $(EXECUTABLE) obj/*.o
(cd .. ; tar czf Kevin_Fairchild_a3.tar.z shell )
# End of Makefile
I get this error:
gcc -o simpleshell obj/shutil.o obj/parser.o obj/sshell.o
gcc: obj/shutil.o: No such file or directory
gcc: obj/parser.o: No such file or directory
gcc: obj/sshell.o: No such file or directory
gcc: no input files
make: *** [simpleshell] Error 1
What simple piece am I missing? I will continue to research and learn more about Makefiles

Answer 1

The trouble is that the pattern rule
%.o: %.c
...
doesn't actually match what you're trying to do. The source file is actually src/shutil.c, so this rule doesn't fit. All Make sees is this rule:
$(OBJS) : $(HEADER_FILES)
There are no commands, so Make concludes that no action is necessary. It then proceeds with the rule for simpleshell, which fails because the objects aren't there.
Try this:
obj/%.o: src/%.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
There are more sophisticated variations, once this much is working.

Answer 2

after adding that simple modification, which I originally attempted before posting here, i.e.
obj/%.o: src/%.c
I recieved this error, so originally I though it was something else.
gcc -Wall -c -o obj/shutil.o
src/shutil.c
src/shutil.c:14:19: error: shell.h: No such file or directory
src/shutil.c: In function ‘signal_c_init’:
src/shutil.c:72: error: ‘waitchildren’ undeclared (first use in this function)
src/shutil.c:72: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
src/shutil.c:72: error: for each function it appears in.)
src/shutil.c: In function ‘checkbackground’:
src/shutil.c:90: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘striptrailingchar’
src/shutil.c: At top level:
src/shutil.c:101: warning: conflicting types for ‘striptrailingchar’
src/shutil.c:90: note: previous implicit declaration of ‘striptrailingchar’ was here
make: *** [obj/shutil.o] Error 1`
Thanks for the quick reply by the way!