My notes for the Makefile file used by the make utility.

Assignments

The simplest = will expand recursively when the LHS is used

1
2
3
4
a = "1"
b = "2"
c = $(a)3 # c is now "13"
a = "4"   # c is now "43"

:= will expand and lock-in the resulting value when it assigns

1
2
3
4
a = "1"
b = "2"
c := $(a)3 # c will remain "13"
a = "4"    # c is still "13"

?= will assign only if the LHS is not assigned to anything

1
2
a = "1"
a ?= "2" # a is still "1"

Magic variables

  • $@: target
  • $<: the first prerequisite
  • $^: list of all prerequisite
  • $*: stem with which the implicit rule matches (“foo” in “foo.c”)
  • $(@D): target directory

Basic implicit rule

1
2
%.o: %.c
    command

means every *.o file seen in the make process is added a dependency *.c, recipe is given in command

List generation

1
C_FILES = $(wildcard $(SRC_DIR)/*.c)

produces a list C_FILES which contains all the *.c files in $(SRC_DIR)

List mapping

1
OBJ_FILES = $(C_FILES:$(SRC_DIR)/%.c=$(BUILD_DIR)/%_c.o)

OBJ_FILES is produced by mapping every item in C_FILES from $(SRC_DIR/%.c to $(BUILD_DIR)/%_c.o

Including files

Simply use include

1
include myrule.file

or use -include to not do anything if the file doesn’t exist.

1
-include myrule.file # no error if myrule.file doesn't exist

Some -M options in gcc

  • -M: instead of outputing the preprocessed result, output a make suiting dependency rule
  • -MM: ignore system header files
  • -MD: don’t stop at the preprocessor, do the rest of the compilation process and generate the dependency as a side product
  • -MMD: -MD and -MM combined
  • -MP: create phony targets for each dependency other than the main file

-MP explanation

Say the -MMD option generated foo.d:

1
foo.o: foo.c foo.h myheader.h

Now if myheader.h is no longer needed, we remove it from foo.c, delete myheader.h and rerun make, because foo.d hasn’t changed make will complain that myheader.h is not found and report an error.
-MP will create foo.d like this:

1
2
3
4
5
foo.o: foo.c foo.h myheader.h

foo.h:

myheader.h:

Then myheader.h will be seen as an empty target by make in the case that myheader.h is not present.

Multi-rule handling

When using implicit rules and includes, there might be multiple rules for one target, in that case all the dependencies are unioned into one big list. The recipe is executed when any of the dependency is younger than the target. There can only be one recipe to be executed for a file.

References

make manual: 4.11 Multiple Rules for One Target

makefile文件中dash include的含义

Makefile cheatsheet

Your Makefiles are Wrong