Re: Make, make, make. . .

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Ishpeck wrote:
> 
> Where might I find a good resource for documentation on wrighting
> makefiles?  I don't know jack diddly about Make (having come from a
> DOS/Borland world where we have projects instead of makefiles).

*basic* Makefiles are really simple, basically three kinds of
thing in the file:

Comments:

# blah blah blah

Setting variables:

FRED = blah blah blah

Defining rules:

thing_you_want :  things_it_depends_on
        command_you_use_to_build_it
        another_command_you_need
        more_commands

Notice that the start of each command line should begin with a TAB
character.  Some 'make' varients will allow a bunch of spaces - but
if you want maximum portability - it's gotta be a TAB...yes, that
does *REALLY* suck...but modern make's don't need it.

Using a variable is done like this:  ${FRED}

There are more things like generic rules and stuff like that.

So, once you have your Makefile, you can either just run 'make thing_you_want'
and it'll go and find the rule to make that file - make sure that all the
'things_it_depends_on' are up to date (possibly evaluating other rules to
make that happen) - and if necessary run all the commands you gave.

Running 'make' without parameters simply defaults to making the first
thing in the file.

You can make the 'thing_you_want' be something that doesn't exist to
make 'virtual' targets.  Commonly used virtual targets are:

all     -- Make everything in this directory...that's usually the
           first rule - so 'make all' is the same as just 'make'.
install -- Make everything and install it wherever it's supposed to be.
clean   -- Erase all the '.o' files and other trash that isn't needed
           after the build.

By default, 'make' will pick up a file called either 'makefile' or
'Makefile' (the latter is more conventional under UNIX/Linux).  You
can name the Makefile something else - but please don't!

That'll get you going with makefile's - but there is LOTS more to learn
and RTFM is the answer.

Once you know a little 'make' - check out the 'automake' package that
can write makefiles for you automagically from a much simpler starting
point ('Makefile.am').

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1@airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker@hti.com      (work)

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