This is my makefile:
all:ll
ll:ll.c
gcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $# $<
clean :
\rm -fr ll
When I try to make clean or make make, I get this error:
:makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop.
How can I fix it?
make defines a tab is required to start each recipe. All actions of every rule are identified by tabs. If you prefer to prefix your recipes with a character other than tab, you can set the .RECIPEPREFIX variable to an alternate character.
To check, I use the command cat -e -t -v makefile_name.
It shows the presence of tabs with ^I and line endings with $. Both are vital to ensure that dependencies end properly and tabs mark the action for the rules so that they are easily identifiable to the make utility.
Example:
Kaizen ~/so_test $ cat -e -t -v mk.t
all:ll$ ## here the $ is end of line ...
$
ll:ll.c $
^Igcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $# $<$
## the ^I above means a tab was there before the action part, so this line is ok .
$
clean :$
\rm -fr ll$
## see here there is no ^I which means , tab is not present ....
## in this case you need to open the file again and edit/ensure a tab
## starts the action part
On VS Code, just click the "Space: 4" on the downright corner and change it to tab when editing your Makefile.
By default, you should always write command after a Tab and not white space. This can be changed to another character with .RECIPEPREFIX variable.
This applies to gcc line (line #4) in your case. You need to insert tab before gcc.
Also replace \rm -fr ll with rm -fr ll. Insert tabs before this command too.
The solution for PyCharm would be to install a Makefile support plugin:
Open Preferences (cmd + ,)
Go to Plugins -> Marketplace
Search for Makefile support, install and restart the IDE.
This should fix the problem and provide a syntax for a makefile.
TLDR;
makefile syntax can be quirky
if you want a line of code to be interpreted as make code it must only be indented with spaces.
if you want a line of code to be interpreted as bash code it must only be indented with tabs
sometask:
ifeq ($FOO,bar) // this is make code. only spaces
echo "foobar" // this is bash code. only tabs
endif // again, this is make code. only spaces
technically its the leading indentation that dictates the interpreter.
Using .editorconfig to fix the tabs automagically:
root = true
[*]
charset = utf-8
end_of_line = lf
insert_final_newline = true
indent_style = space
indent_size = 4
[Makefile]
indent_style = tab
Its pretty old question but still I would like say about one more option using vi/vim editor to visualize the tabs. If you have vi/vim installed then open a Makefile (e.g. vim Makefile) and enter :set list. This will show number of tabs inserted as below,
%-linux: force$
^I#if [ "$(GCC_VERSION)" = "2.96" ] ; then \$
^I^Iecho ===== Generating build tree for legacy $# architecture =====; \$
^I^I$(CONFIGURE) $(CWD) $# legacy; \$
^Ielse \$
^I^Iecho ===== Generating build tree for $# architecture =====; \$
^I^I$(CONFIGURE) $(CWD) $#; \$
^Ifi$
^Icd build-$#;make$
You started line 4 with "space,space" instead of "tab" - nothing else.
When you created a Makefile in VSCode, You should set the Tab Size: 4.
If anyone of you are using a product from Intellij, the solution for this it's the following:
Go to Preferences > Editor > Code Style
here you need to select the file type related to your problem. But most probably you need to select Other File Types.
In the tab opened mark the checkbox for Use tab character and be careful, Tab size and Indent values must be 4.
The key point was "HARD TAB"
Check whether you used TAB instead of whitespace
Check your .vimrc for set tabstop=X
If you are using mcedit for makefile edit. you have to see the following mark.
This is because tab is replaced by spaces.
To disable this feature go to
gedit->edit->preferences->editor
and remove check for
"replace tab with space"
If you are here searching how to make the tabs and new lines you added understandable by vim you have to first enable tab in vim.
You can do it using :set noet i.e. (to switch from spaces to TAB) before you make your tab additions.
With this command your tabs will look like the other ones (i.e. ^I) and *** missing separator. Stop. error from make will go away :)
after you make changes you can switch back with :set et
Do yourself a favour and make this a permanent member of your .editorconfig, if your editor/IDE supports it (it probably does!)
[Makefile]
indent_style = tab
If you are editing your Makefile in eclipse:
Windows-> Preferences->General->Editor->Text Editors->Show Whitespace Characters -> Apply
Or use the shortcut shown below.
Tab will be represented by gray ">>" and Space will be represented by gray "." as in figure below.
If someone ever comes across this issue with
*** missing separator. Stop.
during the build, they should double-check their file system path to the sources, it should not contain special characters like "#"
e.g. path
/home/user/#my_sources/
might be invalid
Related
This is my makefile:
all:ll
ll:ll.c
gcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $# $<
clean :
\rm -fr ll
When I try to make clean or make make, I get this error:
:makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop.
How can I fix it?
make defines a tab is required to start each recipe. All actions of every rule are identified by tabs. If you prefer to prefix your recipes with a character other than tab, you can set the .RECIPEPREFIX variable to an alternate character.
To check, I use the command cat -e -t -v makefile_name.
It shows the presence of tabs with ^I and line endings with $. Both are vital to ensure that dependencies end properly and tabs mark the action for the rules so that they are easily identifiable to the make utility.
Example:
Kaizen ~/so_test $ cat -e -t -v mk.t
all:ll$ ## here the $ is end of line ...
$
ll:ll.c $
^Igcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $# $<$
## the ^I above means a tab was there before the action part, so this line is ok .
$
clean :$
\rm -fr ll$
## see here there is no ^I which means , tab is not present ....
## in this case you need to open the file again and edit/ensure a tab
## starts the action part
On VS Code, just click the "Space: 4" on the downright corner and change it to tab when editing your Makefile.
By default, you should always write command after a Tab and not white space. This can be changed to another character with .RECIPEPREFIX variable.
This applies to gcc line (line #4) in your case. You need to insert tab before gcc.
Also replace \rm -fr ll with rm -fr ll. Insert tabs before this command too.
The solution for PyCharm would be to install a Makefile support plugin:
Open Preferences (cmd + ,)
Go to Plugins -> Marketplace
Search for Makefile support, install and restart the IDE.
This should fix the problem and provide a syntax for a makefile.
TLDR;
makefile syntax can be quirky
if you want a line of code to be interpreted as make code it must only be indented with spaces.
if you want a line of code to be interpreted as bash code it must only be indented with tabs
sometask:
ifeq ($FOO,bar) // this is make code. only spaces
echo "foobar" // this is bash code. only tabs
endif // again, this is make code. only spaces
technically its the leading indentation that dictates the interpreter.
Using .editorconfig to fix the tabs automagically:
root = true
[*]
charset = utf-8
end_of_line = lf
insert_final_newline = true
indent_style = space
indent_size = 4
[Makefile]
indent_style = tab
Its pretty old question but still I would like say about one more option using vi/vim editor to visualize the tabs. If you have vi/vim installed then open a Makefile (e.g. vim Makefile) and enter :set list. This will show number of tabs inserted as below,
%-linux: force$
^I#if [ "$(GCC_VERSION)" = "2.96" ] ; then \$
^I^Iecho ===== Generating build tree for legacy $# architecture =====; \$
^I^I$(CONFIGURE) $(CWD) $# legacy; \$
^Ielse \$
^I^Iecho ===== Generating build tree for $# architecture =====; \$
^I^I$(CONFIGURE) $(CWD) $#; \$
^Ifi$
^Icd build-$#;make$
You started line 4 with "space,space" instead of "tab" - nothing else.
When you created a Makefile in VSCode, You should set the Tab Size: 4.
If anyone of you are using a product from Intellij, the solution for this it's the following:
Go to Preferences > Editor > Code Style
here you need to select the file type related to your problem. But most probably you need to select Other File Types.
In the tab opened mark the checkbox for Use tab character and be careful, Tab size and Indent values must be 4.
The key point was "HARD TAB"
Check whether you used TAB instead of whitespace
Check your .vimrc for set tabstop=X
If you are using mcedit for makefile edit. you have to see the following mark.
This is because tab is replaced by spaces.
To disable this feature go to
gedit->edit->preferences->editor
and remove check for
"replace tab with space"
If you are here searching how to make the tabs and new lines you added understandable by vim you have to first enable tab in vim.
You can do it using :set noet i.e. (to switch from spaces to TAB) before you make your tab additions.
With this command your tabs will look like the other ones (i.e. ^I) and *** missing separator. Stop. error from make will go away :)
after you make changes you can switch back with :set et
Do yourself a favour and make this a permanent member of your .editorconfig, if your editor/IDE supports it (it probably does!)
[Makefile]
indent_style = tab
If you are editing your Makefile in eclipse:
Windows-> Preferences->General->Editor->Text Editors->Show Whitespace Characters -> Apply
Or use the shortcut shown below.
Tab will be represented by gray ">>" and Space will be represented by gray "." as in figure below.
If someone ever comes across this issue with
*** missing separator. Stop.
during the build, they should double-check their file system path to the sources, it should not contain special characters like "#"
e.g. path
/home/user/#my_sources/
might be invalid
I inherited a makefile that begins all lines in a target with the ">" right caret character. I have tried to research what this does and why it is there, but have not been able to find anything.
some-target:
> echo "hello world"
> cd /some/dir
> echo "etc.."
Check if your makefile has the following line anywhere:
.RECIPEPREFIX := >
this will override the default tab character for recipe prefix to >.
Refer to https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Special-Variables.html for more information about .RECIPEPREFIX special variable.
Note, that .RECIPEPREFIX has been added in GNU make version 3.82.
This is my makefile:
all:ll
ll:ll.c
gcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $# $<
clean :
\rm -fr ll
When I try to make clean or make make, I get this error:
:makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop.
How can I fix it?
make defines a tab is required to start each recipe. All actions of every rule are identified by tabs. If you prefer to prefix your recipes with a character other than tab, you can set the .RECIPEPREFIX variable to an alternate character.
To check, I use the command cat -e -t -v makefile_name.
It shows the presence of tabs with ^I and line endings with $. Both are vital to ensure that dependencies end properly and tabs mark the action for the rules so that they are easily identifiable to the make utility.
Example:
Kaizen ~/so_test $ cat -e -t -v mk.t
all:ll$ ## here the $ is end of line ...
$
ll:ll.c $
^Igcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $# $<$
## the ^I above means a tab was there before the action part, so this line is ok .
$
clean :$
\rm -fr ll$
## see here there is no ^I which means , tab is not present ....
## in this case you need to open the file again and edit/ensure a tab
## starts the action part
On VS Code, just click the "Space: 4" on the downright corner and change it to tab when editing your Makefile.
By default, you should always write command after a Tab and not white space. This can be changed to another character with .RECIPEPREFIX variable.
This applies to gcc line (line #4) in your case. You need to insert tab before gcc.
Also replace \rm -fr ll with rm -fr ll. Insert tabs before this command too.
The solution for PyCharm would be to install a Makefile support plugin:
Open Preferences (cmd + ,)
Go to Plugins -> Marketplace
Search for Makefile support, install and restart the IDE.
This should fix the problem and provide a syntax for a makefile.
TLDR;
makefile syntax can be quirky
if you want a line of code to be interpreted as make code it must only be indented with spaces.
if you want a line of code to be interpreted as bash code it must only be indented with tabs
sometask:
ifeq ($FOO,bar) // this is make code. only spaces
echo "foobar" // this is bash code. only tabs
endif // again, this is make code. only spaces
technically its the leading indentation that dictates the interpreter.
Using .editorconfig to fix the tabs automagically:
root = true
[*]
charset = utf-8
end_of_line = lf
insert_final_newline = true
indent_style = space
indent_size = 4
[Makefile]
indent_style = tab
Its pretty old question but still I would like say about one more option using vi/vim editor to visualize the tabs. If you have vi/vim installed then open a Makefile (e.g. vim Makefile) and enter :set list. This will show number of tabs inserted as below,
%-linux: force$
^I#if [ "$(GCC_VERSION)" = "2.96" ] ; then \$
^I^Iecho ===== Generating build tree for legacy $# architecture =====; \$
^I^I$(CONFIGURE) $(CWD) $# legacy; \$
^Ielse \$
^I^Iecho ===== Generating build tree for $# architecture =====; \$
^I^I$(CONFIGURE) $(CWD) $#; \$
^Ifi$
^Icd build-$#;make$
You started line 4 with "space,space" instead of "tab" - nothing else.
When you created a Makefile in VSCode, You should set the Tab Size: 4.
If anyone of you are using a product from Intellij, the solution for this it's the following:
Go to Preferences > Editor > Code Style
here you need to select the file type related to your problem. But most probably you need to select Other File Types.
In the tab opened mark the checkbox for Use tab character and be careful, Tab size and Indent values must be 4.
The key point was "HARD TAB"
Check whether you used TAB instead of whitespace
Check your .vimrc for set tabstop=X
If you are using mcedit for makefile edit. you have to see the following mark.
This is because tab is replaced by spaces.
To disable this feature go to
gedit->edit->preferences->editor
and remove check for
"replace tab with space"
If you are here searching how to make the tabs and new lines you added understandable by vim you have to first enable tab in vim.
You can do it using :set noet i.e. (to switch from spaces to TAB) before you make your tab additions.
With this command your tabs will look like the other ones (i.e. ^I) and *** missing separator. Stop. error from make will go away :)
after you make changes you can switch back with :set et
Do yourself a favour and make this a permanent member of your .editorconfig, if your editor/IDE supports it (it probably does!)
[Makefile]
indent_style = tab
If you are editing your Makefile in eclipse:
Windows-> Preferences->General->Editor->Text Editors->Show Whitespace Characters -> Apply
Or use the shortcut shown below.
Tab will be represented by gray ">>" and Space will be represented by gray "." as in figure below.
If someone ever comes across this issue with
*** missing separator. Stop.
during the build, they should double-check their file system path to the sources, it should not contain special characters like "#"
e.g. path
/home/user/#my_sources/
might be invalid
I can't figure where my code is wrong. I'm trying to launch the "make" command on a C++-project in windows prompt (I installed mingw-get-inst-20120426 on my pc) and it gives me back always the same error:
Makefile:672: * missing separator. Stop.
This is the line 672 of my file:
&& $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) DESTDIR="$$dc_destdir" uninstall \
I have check for hidden spaces in this line, but there are only tabs: I have no idea where the error is (I'm newbie to makefiles).
Can anybobody help me?
Thanks,
Stefano
You should show the rest of the rule, not just that one line. The problem is not on this line but on the lines before it. I'll make a guess and say that either (a) you've forgotten to add a backslash at the end of the previous line, or (b) you have a backslash but then you've also added some extra whitespace or whatever after the backslash; the backslash must be the last character on the line to be recognized as a continuation character.
It's possible that the variables $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) include leading or trailing spaces, please post the context of this line in your Makefile, as-well as the values used for those variables.
Edit: I had intended my answer to be: the contents of $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) likely include a trailing or leading space, thus causing this error.
I want to backtrace the makefile for firefox so that I can get the final gcc command that is used to compile the c++ files. How can I do that?
If you find a line in there that begins with "# $(CXX)" or "# g++", then change the line to "$(CXX)" or "g++" -- in other words, delete the "#" symbol from the line. When an "#" symbol appears at the beginning of a command in a Makefile, it causes Make to not echo the command before executing it. Deleting the "#" symbol will cause the expanded form of the line to be echoed before the command is invoked.
I haven't looked at Firefox's makefile, so it is more than possible that they are using predefined pattern rules for building the code, in which case you won't see any lines beginning with "$(CXX)" . If that is the case, you will need to override the rules, so that the default build rules echo the commands before executing them.
For more information on overriding Makefile pattern build rules, see this link:
http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Pattern-Rules
The usual stunt for this is to replace gcc with a program that reads the gcc command line,
store it in some log file so it can be inspected, and then launches gcc with the command line. You can do this by replacing "gcc.exe" in your development directories by this stepping stone program.
Here's the make rule that compiles C++ files:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/annotate/c1ab8650e0ce/config/rules.mk#l1391
If all you want to do is replace the compiler, you can (in your mozconfig, or on the configure commandline) set CXX="whatever".
Can you redirect the output of make to a file, then use a text editor to search for the line of interest?