diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 3e53a552..92637f74 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 2009-06-13  Paul Smith  <psmith@gnu.org>
 
+	* ar.c (ar_name): Ensure that targets with empty parens aren't
+	considered archive member references: archive members must have a
+	non-empty "member" string.  Fixes Savannah bug #18435.
+
 	* function.c (string_glob): Rely on multi_glob() to determine
 	whether files exist or not.  Remove call to file_exists_p() which
 	is not always correct.  Fixes Savannah bug #21231.
diff --git a/ar.c b/ar.c
index bb9c9ed3..304ee9c9 100644
--- a/ar.c
+++ b/ar.c
@@ -24,8 +24,9 @@ this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.  */
 #include "dep.h"
 #include <fnmatch.h>
 
-/* Return nonzero if NAME is an archive-member reference, zero if not.
-   An archive-member reference is a name like `lib(member)'.
+/* Return nonzero if NAME is an archive-member reference, zero if not.  An
+   archive-member reference is a name like `lib(member)' where member is a
+   non-empty string.
    If a name like `lib((entry))' is used, a fatal error is signaled at
    the attempt to use this unsupported feature.  */
 
@@ -39,7 +40,7 @@ ar_name (const char *name)
     return 0;
 
   end = p + strlen (p) - 1;
-  if (*end != ')')
+  if (*end != ')' || end == p + 1)
     return 0;
 
   if (p[1] == '(' && end[-1] == ')')