make dependencies: skip vendor and package headers with gcc? - gcc

I'm starting a new project and thinking of using gcc 6.3.1 -MM to generate the dependencies into a file called Make.Dep, that I'll include from Makefile.
The -M option outputs all headers, including system headers. The -MM option doesn't output system headers, but I'm still buried in literally thousands of vendor and package headers such as Sybase and Boost, which I don't think will change (and if they do I'm happy to have to do a full rebuild manually).
Obviously I could wrap gcc -MM in a perl script or what have you that knows what directories I consider packages, but is there some more widely-accepted solution?
Note that one of my vendors' headers look for specific gcc-defined pre-processor symbols to configure their portability. I'd rather not curate a set of such symbols manually to allow dependency generation with some non-gcc method (e.g., makedepend).

Instead of -I, use -isystem to state directories that you don't wish to be output with -MM.
This is not mentioned currently at https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Preprocessor-Options.html despite it seeming to be very closely tied to -M and -MM options.
Example: this creates correct dependencies of foo.cpp and bar.cpp, including Sybase headers:
gcc -MM -I/opt/nmr/sap/sybaseASE/sybclient-16.0.3-7/OCS-16_0/include foo.cpp bar.cpp
Example: this does the same, but not including Sybase headers:
gcc -MM -isystem /opt/nmr/sap/sybaseASE/sybclient-16.0.3-7/OCS-16_0/include foo.cpp bar.cpp
Here is a sample Makefile implementation for gmake. The patsubst function is a pattern substitution using % as a part that matches on the "before" that is then captured and used in the "after." isystem appears to need a space after it, but this is easy to generate with patsubst as the percent sign keeps the space from being truncated. The minus option on -include tells gmake not to complain if the file named doesn't exist. This allows you to use gmake to make depend and produce Make.Dep even before there is a Make.Dep. Finally, this assumes $(PkgIncDirs) hold package include directories none of which should be changing, while $(ProjIncDirs) would be include directories inside the project that you'd want dependencies to be generated for.
depend:
gcc -MM $(CFlags) $(Defines) $(patsubst -I%, -isystem %, $(PkgIncDirs)) $(ProjIncDirs) $(Source) >Make.Dep
-include Make.Dep

Related

GCC creating dependencies for generated header files in proper directory

I use GCC to create dependency files, from header files stored in a
certain directory. Here is my recipe:
gcc -MM -MG -MT obj/$*.o -MP -MF dep/$*.Td -I include $<
One of these header files is generated (with Bison 3.0.5), so it may not
exist. I therefore use the -MG option as shown above, but it generates
a dependency without the directory. How can I tweak make or GCC to
prepend the include directory to the generated header?
Thanks in advance
dordow
Typically, the search path has many entries, and if the header file does not exist, it is unclear which prefix to pick.
The cook build tool comes with a program, c_incl, which scans C source files for #include directives and can be made to behave in the way you intend, with a command like c_incl -No_Cache -Absent_System_Mention -Iinclude -C. But this tool is fairly obscure.
It is probably better to use a slightly less obscure GNU make feature instead: order-only prerequisites, as described in Types of Prerequisites. You would list the generated header files (or other Bison output files) as order-only prerequisites for all rules that compile C files, so that they are generated early on first build, but do not needlessly trigger rebuilds afterwards. With this approach, you do not need to generate dependencies on files which do not exist yet.

GNU make in newly created subdirectory

First - I know there are a lot of discussions similar to this, but I've spent hours without them working for me.
My makefile first creates a directory named by the current date and time. I then have the makefile append to a header file a line which creates a string with this directory name. For this reason, I first need to copy all the source files (including the header) into the newly created subdirectory, so that I can preserve the original header and only modify the header (in the subdirectory) which will be used for compilation. I would then like to build in that new directory.
My trouble is getting make to properly build the .o files in the new subdirectory. The solution I've found is to have
$(NOW)%.o: $(NOW)%.cpp
$(CC) -c $(FLAGS) $<
where $(NOW)$ is the subdirectory name. The issue is that my $(FLAGS) seem to be ignored: the output is, roughly
g++ -c -o <.o file> <.cpp file>
(Yes, there is actually extra introduced space between g++ and -c.) Whereas building in the top level directory a la
%.o: %.cpp
$(CC) -c $(FLAGS) $<
correctly outputs
g++ -c <my flags> -o <.o file> <.cpp file>
To summarize, I am unable to compile normally by transferring the source files to a newly-created subdirectory and building the .o files in that directory. TYIA.
Ad John points out, there's no way to definitively diagnose your problem with the tiny bit of makefile you provided, because the error is not in the code you provided, it's in some other part of your makefile. You need to provide a SSCCE ideally, but if not that then at least we need to see how the NOW variable is set and the linker rule so we know what make is trying to build.
I should also point out that by convention you should not use CC to hold the C++ compiler; the CC variable holds the C compiler. Use CXX for the C++ compiler and CXXFLAGS for the C++ compiler flags.
One possibility is that you are assigning the NOW variable using a recursive assignment so that the timestamp is recreated every time the variable is evaluated; it could be that the timestamp changes over the lifetime of the makefile.
The other very common problem is that you created the pattern rule, but make is not using it because the targets make wants to build don't match the pattern.
So for example, if your link line looks like this:
SRCS = foo.cpp
OBJS = $(SRC:.cpp=.o)
myprog: $(OBJS)
$(CXX) ...
$(NOW)%.o : $(NOW)%.cpp
$(CXX) ...
then your pattern will not be matched because make is trying to build the file foo.o and your rule tells it how to build $(NOW)foo.o which are not the same thing.

how to gcc compile with #define in multiple files

I have a project with multiple files.. I want to compile it using gcc from command line.
the directory looks like this
lib/
Comp/ contains .cpp files
Decomp/ contains .cpp files
Globals.cpp
include/
Comp/ contains .h files
Decomp/ contains .h files
Globals.h
some of these .h files are not paired with .cpp files
to compile this i use something like this :
g++ lib/Comp/* lib/Decomp/* lib/Globals.cpp -std=c++0x -o TEST
the problem is,I have to add some #defines for each .h file and i have to do it through command line. how to do this ??
also if i had to compile each file on its own and then link them. what would be the appropriate order for doing this ?
The dirtiest ugliest way is that you want to use something like:
g++ -Iinclude lib/Comp/*.cpp lib/Decomp/*.cpp lib/Globals.cpp -o test
Your .cpp files should #include <Comp/foo.h> or whatever
The correct way to manage this is to use a makefile to build each object file and then link them together:
Makefile
Create a a file called Makefile and put the following in it:
CXX=g++
CPPFLAGS=-Iinclude -DFOO -DBAR=1 -DSOME_STRING=\"My Name\"
CXXFLAGS=-O2 -g
SOURCES=lib/Comp/file1.cpp \
lib/Comp/file2.cpp \
lib/Comp/file3.cpp \
lib/Decomp/file1.cpp \
lib/Decomp/file2.cpp \
...
OBJ=$(SOURCES:%.cpp=%.o)
default: test
test: $(OBJ)
<tab> $(CXX) -o $# $(OBJ)
%.o: %.cpp
<tab> $(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $# -c $<
NOTES
Replace file1.cpp etc. with the actual filenames in your project. DO NOT include headers in SOURCES only your .cpp or .cc files
If you are using sub-paths like #include <Comp/foo.h> or #include "Comp/foo.h" in your source files then you only need to use -Iinclude in CPPFLAGS but if you are doing something like "foo.h" and foo.h is actually in include/Comp/ then add -Iinclude/Comp and -Iinclude/Decomp to the CPPFLAGS
Where it says <tab> make sure you use the TAB key to insert a tab (don't type the word '')
Before using this Makefile blindly . Know that it will NOT work as is you have to correct the entries. It is offered as a starting point... Read up on writing Makefiles ... http://frank.mtsu.edu/~csdept/FacilitiesAndResources/make.htm has a good introduction
Defines can be provided on the compiler command line using -DVAR=VALUE (on Windows, presumably /DVAR=VALUE). Note that you can not provide different defines for different headers as in:
compiler -DX=one first.h -DX=two second.h third.cc -o third.o
In such a case, my compiler spews warning and uses the last value of X for all source code.
Anyway, in general you should not list header files on the compilation line; prefer to include them from the implementation files (.cc/.cpp or whatever) that need them.
Be careful too - if you're changing defines to modify class definitions, inline function implementation etc. you can end up with technically and/or practically undefined behaviour.
In terms of how best to decide which objects to create and link - you probably want one object per .cc/.cpp file. You can link those objects then specify them on the command line when compiling the file containing main().

Cmake vs make sample codes?

I was wondering if there was any sample code for Makefiles (make) and CMakeLists.txt (cmake) that both do the same thing (the only difference being that one is written in make and the other in cmake).
I tried looking for 'cmake vs make', but I never found any code comparisons. It would be really helpful to understand the differences, even if just for a simple case.
The following Makefile builds an executable named prog from the sources
prog1.c, prog2.c, prog3.c and main.c. prog is linked against libmystatlib.a
and libmydynlib.so which are both also built from source. Additionally, prog uses
the library libstuff.a in stuff/lib and its header in stuff/include. The
Makefile by default builds a release target, but offers also a debug target:
#Makefile
CC = gcc
CPP = g++
RANLIB = ar rcs
RELEASE = -c -O3
DEBUG = -c -g -D_DEBUG
INCDIR = -I./stuff/include
LIBDIR = -L./stuff/lib -L.
LIBS = -lstuff -lmystatlib -lmydynlib
CFLAGS = $(RELEASE)
PROGOBJS = prog1.o prog2.o prog3.o
prog: main.o $(PROGOBJS) mystatlib mydynlib
$(CC) main.o $(PROGOBJS) $(LIBDIR) $(LIBS) -o prog
debug: CFLAGS=$(DEBUG)
debug: prog
mystatlib: mystatlib.o
$(RANLIB) libmystatlib.a mystatlib.o
mydynlib: mydynlib.o
$(CPP) -shared mydynlib.o -o libmydynlib.so
%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCDIR) $< -o $#
%.o: %.cpp
$(CPP) $(CFLAGS) $(INCDIR) -fPIC $< -o $#
Here is a CMakeLists.txtthat does (almost) exactly the same, with some comments to underline the
similarities to the Makefile:
#CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8) # stuff not directly
project(example) # related to building
include_directories(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/stuff/include) # -I flags for compiler
link_directories(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/stuff/lib) # -L flags for linker
set(PROGSRC prog1.c prog2.c prog3.c) # define variable
add_executable(prog main.c ${PROGSRC}) # define executable target prog, specify sources
target_link_libraries(prog mystatlib mydynlib stuff) # -l flags for linking prog target
add_library(mystatlib STATIC mystatlib.c) # define static library target mystatlib, specify sources
add_library(mydynlib SHARED mydynlib.cpp) # define shared library target mydynlib, specify sources
#extra flags for linking mydynlib
set_target_properties(mydynlib PROPERTIES POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE TRUE)
#alternatively:
#set_target_properties(mydynlib PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "-fPIC")
In this simple example, the most important differences are:
CMake recognizes which compilers to use for which kind of source. Also, it
invokes the right sequence of commands for each type of target. Therefore, there
is no explicit specification of commands like $(CC) ..., $(RANLIB) ... and so on.
All usual compiler/linker flags dealing with inclusion of header files, libraries, etc.
are replaced by platform independent / build system independent commands.
Debugging flags are included by either setting the variable CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to "Debug",
or by passing it to CMake when invoking the program: cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Debug.
CMake offers also the platform independent inclusion of the '-fPIC' flag (via
the POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE property) and many others. Still, more obscure settings can be implemented by hand in CMake just as well as in a Makefile (by using COMPILE_FLAGS
and similar properties). Of course CMake really starts to shine when third party
libraries (like OpenGL) are included in a portable manner.
The build process has one step if you use a Makefile, namely typing make at the command line. For CMake, there are two steps: First, you need to setup your build environment (either by typing cmake <source_dir> in your build directory or by running some GUI client). This creates a Makefile or something equivalent, depending on the build system of your choice (e.g. make on Unixes or VC++ or MinGW + Msys on Windows). The build system can be passed to CMake as a parameter; however, CMake makes reasonable default choices depending on your system configuration. Second, you perform the actual build in the selected build system.
Sources and build instructions are available at https://github.com/rhoelzel/make_cmake.
Grab some software that uses CMake as its buildsystem (there's plenty of opensource projects to choose from as an example). Get the source code and configure it using CMake. Read resulting makefiles and enjoy.
One thing to keep in mind that those tools don't map one-to-one. The most obvious difference is that CMake scans for dependencies between different files (e.g. C header and source files), whereas make leaves that to the makefile authors.
If this question is about a sample Makefile output of the CMakeList.txt file then please check the cmake-backend sources and generate one such Makefile. If it is not then adding to the reply of #Roberto I am trying to make it simple by hiding the details.
CMake function
While Make is flexible tool for rules and recipe, CMake is a layer of abstraction that also adds the configuration feature.
My plain CMakeLists.txt will look like the following,
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)
project(example)
file(GLOB testapp_SOURCES *.cc)
add_executable(testapp ${testapp_SOURCES})
Note, that CMake hides how the build can be done. We only specified what is the input and output.
The CMakeLists.txt contains list of function-calls that are defined by cmake.
(CMake function) Vs Make rules
In Makefile the rules and recipes are used instead of functions . In addition to function-like feature, rules and recipes provide chaining. My minimalistic Makefile will look like the following,
-include "executable.mk"
TARGETS=testapp.bin
all:${TARGETS}
While the executable.mk will look like the following,
SOURCES=$(wildcard *.cpp)
OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:.cpp=.o)
DEPS=$(SOURCES:.cpp=.d)
%.bin:$(OBJECTS)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $^ $(LFLAGS) $(LIBS)
.PHONY: all clean
clean:
$(RM) $(OBJECTS) $(DEPS) $(TARGETS)
-include $(DEPS)
Starting from the scratch I shall start with a Makefile like the following,
all: testapp.bin
testapp.bin:sourcea.o sourcb.o
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $^ $(LFLAGS) $(LIBS)
.PHONY: all clean
clean:
$(RM) $(OBJECTS) testapp.bin
I got this snippet from here and modified it. Note that some implicit-rules are added to this file which can be found in the makefile-documentation. Some implicit variables are also relevant here.
Note, that Makefile provides the detail recipe showing how the build can be done. It is possible to write executable.mk to keep the details defined in one file. In that way the makefile can be reduced as I showed earlier.
Internal Variables in CMake and Make
Now getting little advanced, in CMake we can set a compiler flag like the following,
set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS "-Wall")
Please find out more about CMake default variables in CMakeCache.txt file.
The CMake code above will be equivalent to Make code below,
CFLAGS = -Wall
Note that CFLAGS is an internal variable in Make, the same way, CMAKE_C_FLAGS is internal variable in CMake .
adding include and library path in CMake
We can do it in cmake using functions.
target_include_directories(testapp PRIVATE "myincludes")
list(APPEND testapp_LIBRARIES
mytest mylibrarypath
)
target_link_libraries(testapp ${testapp_LIBRARIES})
Vs adding include and library path in Make
We can add include and libraries by adding lines like the following,
INCLUDES += -Imyincludes
LIBS += -Lmylibrarypath -lmytest
Note this lines above can be generated from auto-gen tools or pkg-config. (though Makefile is not dependent of auto-config tools)
CMake configure/tweek
Normally it is possible to generate some config.h file just like auto-config tools by using configure_file function. It is possible to do more trick writing custom functions. And finally we can select a config like the following,
cmake --build . --config "Release"
It is possible to add some configurable option using the option function.
Makefile configure/tweak
If somehow we need to compile it with some debug flag, we can invoke the make like,
make CXXFLAGS=NDEBUG
I think internal variables, Makefile-rules and CMake-functions are good start for the comparison, good luck with more digging.

CFLAGS vs CPPFLAGS

I understand that CFLAGS (or CXXFLAGS for C++) are for the compiler, whereas CPPFLAGS is used by the preprocessor.
But I still don't understand the difference.
I need to specify an include path for a header file that is included with #include -- because #include is a preprocessor directive, is the preprocessor (CPPFLAGS) the only thing I care about?
Under what circumstances do I need to give the compiler an extra include path?
In general, if the preprocessor finds and includes needed header files, why does it ever need to be told about extra include directories? What use is CFLAGS at all?
(In my case, I actually found that BOTH of these allow me to compile my program, which adds to the confusion... I can use CFLAGS OR CPPFLAGS to accomplish my goal (in autoconf context at least). What gives?)
The implicit make rule for compiling a C program is
%.o:%.c
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
where the $() syntax expands the variables. As both CPPFLAGS and CFLAGS are used in the compiler call, which you use to define include paths is a matter of personal taste. For instance if foo.c is a file in the current directory
make foo.o CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include"
make foo.o CFLAGS="-I/usr/include"
will both call your compiler in exactly the same way, namely
gcc -I/usr/include -c -o foo.o foo.c
The difference between the two comes into play when you have multiple languages which need the same include path, for instance if you have bar.cpp then try
make bar.o CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include"
make bar.o CFLAGS="-I/usr/include"
then the compilations will be
g++ -I/usr/include -c -o bar.o bar.cpp
g++ -c -o bar.o bar.cpp
as the C++ implicit rule also uses the CPPFLAGS variable.
This difference gives you a good guide for which to use - if you want the flag to be used for all languages put it in CPPFLAGS, if it's for a specific language put it in CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS etc. Examples of the latter type include standard compliance or warning flags - you wouldn't want to pass -std=c99 to your C++ compiler!
You might then end up with something like this in your makefile
CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/include
CFLAGS=-std=c99
CXXFLAGS=-Weffc++
The CPPFLAGS macro is the one to use to specify #include directories.
Both CPPFLAGS and CFLAGS work in your case because the make(1) rule combines both preprocessing and compiling in one command (so both macros are used in the command).
You don't need to specify . as an include-directory if you use the form #include "...". You also don't need to specify the standard compiler include directory. You do need to specify all other include-directories.
You are after implicit make rules.
To add to those who have mentioned the implicit rules, it's best to see what make has defined implicitly and for your env using:
make -p
For instance:
%.o: %.c
$(COMPILE.c) $(OUTPUT_OPTION) $<
which expands
COMPILE.c = $(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $(CPPFLAGS) $(TARGET_ARCH) -c
This will also print # environment data. Here, you will find GCC's include path among other useful info.
C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include
In make, when it comes to search, the paths are many, the light is one... or something to that effect.
C_INCLUDE_PATH is system-wide, set it in your shell's *.rc.
$(CPPFLAGS) is for the preprocessor include path.
If you need to add a general search path for make, use:
VPATH = my_dir_to_search
... or even more specific
vpath %.c src
vpath %.h include
make uses VPATH as a general search path so use cautiously. If a file exists in more than one location listed in VPATH, make will take the first occurrence in the list.
I installed httpd on Ubuntu 18.04 using the CPPFLAGS variable for the -DLINUX flag. When run, CPPFLAGS scans the code from top to bottom, file by file, looking for directives before compiling, and will not be extended by other meaningful things like size optimization, flags that do not increase the size of the output file; under the type of processor; to reduce the size of the code and speed up the program; disable all variables except case. The only difference between CPPFLAGS and CFLAGS is that CFLAGS can be set to specify additional switches to be passed to the compiler. That is, the CFLAGS environment variable creates a directory in the installation path (eg CFLAGS=-i/opt/include) to add debugging information to the executable target's path: include general alarm messages; turning off alarm information; independent location generation; display compiler driver, preprocessor, compiler version number.
Standard way to set CPPFLAGS:
sudo ./configure --enable-unixd=DLINUX #for example
list of some known variables:
CPPFLAGS - is the variable name for flags to the C preprocessor.
CXXFLAGS - is the standard variable name for flags to the C++ compiler.
CFLAGS is - the standard name for a variable with compilation flags.
LDFLAGS - should be used for search flags/paths (-L) - i.e. -L/usr/lib (/usr/lib are library binaries).
LDLIBS - for linking libraries.
CPPFLAGS seems to be an invention of GNU Make, referenced in some of its built-in recipes.
If your program is built by some Free software distributions, you may find that some of them require packages to interpolate this variable, using CPPFLAGS for passing down options like -D_WHATEVER=1 for passing down a macro definition.
This separation is a poor idea and completely unnecessary in the GNU environment because:
There is a way to run gcc to do preprocessing only (while ignoring compiler options unrelated to preprocessing).
The stand-alone GNU cpp is tolerant to compiler options, such as -W warnings that do not pertain to preprocessing and even code generation options like -fstrict-aliasing and the linker-pass through like -Wl,--whatever.
So generally speaking, build systems that need to call the stand-alone preprocessor for whatever reason can just pass it $(CFLAGS).
As an application developer writing a Makefile, you cannot rely on the existence of CPPFLAGS. Users who are not insider experts in open source building won't know about CPPFLAGS, and will do things like make CFLAGS=-Dfoo=bar when building your program. If that doesn't work, they will be annoyed.
As a distro maintainer, you cannot rely on programs to pull in CPPFLAGS; even otherwise well-behaved ones that pull in CFLAGS, LDFLAGS and LDLIBS.
It's easy enough for the application developers to write GNU Make code to separate preprocessor flags out of $(CFLAGS):
cpp_only_flags := $(foreach arg, \
$(CFLAGS), \
$(or $(filter -D%,$(arg)), \
$(filter -U%,$(arg)), \
$(filter -I%,$(arg)), \
$(filter -iquote%,$(arg)), \
$(filter -W%,$(arg)), \
$(filter -M%,$(arg)))) \
$(CPPFLAGS) # also pull this in
all:
#echo cpp_only_flags == $(cpp_only_flags)
Demo:
$ make CFLAGS="-Wall -I/path/to/include -W -UMAC -DFOO=bar -o foo.o -lm"
cpp_only_flags == -Wall -I/path/to/include -W -UMAC -DFOO=bar
In the case of the GNU compiler and preprocessor, this is probably unnnecessary; but it illustrates a technique that could be used for non-GNU compilers and preprocessors, in a build system based on GNU Make.

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