what format of configuration files gnu make can handle? - makefile

Today at work place I took a look at a project makefile that totally looked lile a yaml file configuration How I have used it in gitlab yaml configuration.
so my question is how many dfferent file configuration gnu make can handle ?

Today at work place I took a look at a project makefile that totally looked lile a yaml file configuration
Makefile syntax bears a resemblance to YAML. It can be stronger or weaker depending on the makefile. Points of general similarity include:
The first line of a rule with one target and one prerequisite looks like a key / value pair in a YAML map. This is especially pronounced in rules that do not specify a recipe.
bar: bar.c
foo.o: foo.c
A rule with a target and no prerequisites, but with a recipe whose commands use error suppression, resembles a YAML map entry whose value is an array
clean:
-rm -r *.o bin/*
-rmdir bin
Make and YAML have substantially the same syntax for comments
# This is a comment
so my question is how many dfferent file configuration gnu make can handle ?
The manual documents only the one.

I am fairly sure that gnu make only takes more gnu make files for "configuration" - i.e.
my_makefile.mk::
include config.mk
rule1:
echo hello world
Where we can add some generic variable/rules into the "config.mk" file and include it in other makefiles. Can you point out where you have seen other gnu makefile "config" types that are not makefiles?

Related

How to use GNU make to update files in all subdirectories containing a particular file?

In my project, I have a set of sub-directories that contain package.yaml files, for e.g.:
A/package.yaml
B/package.yaml
C/package.yaml
If I run hpack A/package.yaml, the file A/A.cabal is (re-)generated. The list of such directories can change over time, so I want to use GNU make to find all immediate sub-directories containing package.yaml files and generate the corresponding .cabal files using hpack.
I tried this based on another question, but it didn't work:
HPACK_FILES := $(wildcard */package.yaml)
PKG_DIRS := $(subst /,,$(dir $(HPACK_FILES)))
CABAL_FILES := $(addsuffix .cabal,$(join $(dir $(HPACK_FILES)),$(PKG_DIRS)))
test:
#echo $(CABAL_FILES)
update-cabal: $(CABAL_FILES)
%.cabal: package.yaml
hpack $<
However, make update-cabal says there's nothing to be done. make test however does output the right cabal files. How can I fix this?
Cheers!
The problem is this:
%.cabal: package.yaml
There is no file package.yaml. The files are named things like A/package.yaml. That is not the same thing.
Because the prerequisite doesn't exist, make decides that this pattern rule cannot match and so it goes looking for another rule that might be able to build the target. It doesn't find any rule that can build the target, so make says there's nothing to do because all the output files already exist.
Unfortunately what you want to do is not at all easy with make, because make is most comfortable with input and output files that are tied together by the filename with extensions, or similar. And in particular, it has a really hard time with relationships where the variable part is repeated more than once (as in, A/A.cabal where the A is repeated). There's no easy way to do that in make.
You'll have to use an advanced feature such as eval to do this. Something like:
# How to build a cabal file
%.cabal:
hpack $<
# Declare the prerequisites
$(foreach D,$(dir $(HPACK_FILES)),$(eval $D/$D.cabal: $D/package.yml))

Makefile pattern rules not working

I am learning makefiles, and can't just wrap my head around this problem i am having, and would like to understand how/why this fail.
I have half a dozen erlang files in a src directory. I want to compile these into a ebin directory, without having to define a rule for each and every one of them. According to the Gnu make documentation, pattern rules should be right up my alley.
However, with the following makefile, all I get from make is make: *** No targets. Stop. Why is that?
ebin/%.beam: src/%.erl
mkdir -p ebin
erlc -o ebin $<
Edit: Based on this answer, I now understand that i would have to explicitly declare the targets, for instance by using make ebin/cmplx.beam. However, i still do not understand how i should write my makefile to get my desired behaviour - since I have half a dozen targets (and in other projects even more), this seems like an unnecessary hassle. Is there not a way to define targets based on the source file names?
The target rule tells make that whenever it needs to produce a beam file in the ebin directory, and there exists a corresponding erl file in the src directory, it can use erlc.
However, this doesn't tell make that this is what it needs to do. You could explicitly tell make what it needs to do by giving it a target on the command line:
make ebin/foo.beam
If you don't give a target on the command line, make will pick the first non-pattern rule in the makefile as its target. However, your makefile doesn't have any non-pattern rules, so there is no target.
What you probably want is that for each existing erl file in src, make should consider the corresponding beam file in ebin to be a target. You can achieve that by calling wildcard and patsubst:
erl_files=$(wildcard src/*.erl)
beam_files=$(patsubst src/%.erl,ebin/%.beam,$(erl_files))
ebin/%.beam: src/%.erl
mkdir -p ebin
erlc -o ebin $<
all: $(beam_files)
(The indented lines need to be actual physical tabs, not spaces.)
That way, running make will rebuild all beam files that are out of date. all gets chosen as the default target, and it in turn depends on all beam existing or potential, each of which in turn depends on the corresponding erl file.
This trick is described in the GNU make manual.

searchpath for prereqisites, like vpath, but only for some pattern rules

I'm trying to build several executables in one make instance, as suggested by
Recursive Make Considered Harmful.
The arguments of that paper apply to my project because some of my source files are generated, and go into multiple executables.
The object files for each of these executables go into separate directories, because they are compiled with different preprocessor flags.
How can I specify separate vpath settings for each of these executables, so that source files with duplicate filenames in separate directories go into the executables where I want them to go?
Setting vpath before the rules to build the object files for one executable, and erasing it afterwards (by not giving any directories) doesn't have the desired effect. Apparently, the last setting is used for all the rules.
Solutions I see currently:
Rename source filenames to use unique names so that I can use a global vpath setting
Instead of vpath, use separate rules for each source directory, with the source directory in the prerequisite pattern (*)
Recursive make, with separate vpath settings in each make instance, and somehow deal with the resulting trouble.
Use something different than make.
Is there a better solution, or which one of the above would you prefer?
(*) The solution with separate rules looks like this:
build/$(PROGRAM)/%.o: %.c
$(COMPILE_RECIPE)
build/$(PROGRAM)/%.o: $($(PROGRAM)_SOURCE_DIR)/%.c
$(COMPILE_RECIPE)
Ok for my current project, but would become ugly fast, if there where more than one directory different in the source paths of the executables
Edit: Test for suggestion of #Etan, which shows that $^ is empty, when the prerequisites appear only in pattern rules (y/y.c) - this only works if each dependency is given directly, as for x/x.c.
.PHONY: all
all: build/x.o build/y.o
build/x.o: x/x.c
# the following rule is ignored:
build/%.o: y/%.c
# because there is a matching pattern rule with a recipe:
build/%.o:
#echo \"$#\" from \"$^\"
#touch $#
The files x/x.c, y/y.c and the directory build exist.
output:
"build/x.o" from "x/x.c"
"build/y.o" from ""
Tested with GNU Make 3.82.90
First, it's never correct to use VPATH or vpath to find derived files (files that are built by make)... that includes "source files that are generated" (if they are generated by make, and not before make is invoked somehow). VPATH/vpath can only be used to find source files (files that are not built by make). See How not to use VPATH for more information.
Second, vpath is a global setting, not a per-target setting. Whenever make wants to find a prerequisite and that prerequisite doesn't exist "normally", make will use the vpath settings to find it. There's no facility in vpath to say "for this target use these vpath settings, for that target use those". In an ideal world, you would be able to set VPATH as a target-specific variable but this doesn't work.
There are various ways to generate prerequisites based on a target: you might find some of the suggestions on metaprogramming in make helpful.
Lastly, the makefile example you give regarding $^ is not correct:
# the following rule is ignored:
build/%.o: y/%.c
# because there is a matching pattern rule with a recipe:
build/%.o:
#echo \"$#\" from \"$^\"
#touch $#
You cannot specify a pattern rule without any recipe and have it "add" prerequisite patterns to some other existing pattern rule. It works for explicit rules, to add more prerequisites to a target, but specifying a pattern rule with no recipe simply deletes the pattern rule.
So, $^ is empty for build/y.o because there are no prerequisites defined in the pattern rule and you've not defined any explicit prerequisites for build/y.o like you did for build/x.o.
ETA: The reference to metaprogramming was to suggest that you can use it to make your second option, which is the one I would use, be less typing and easier maintenance. Pick the method you prefer and auto-generate the various pattern rules. This might be termed a "fifth option".
Other than that any of the four you suggest are fine, and there isn't another option you're missing that I'm aware of.

How such makefile works? (is it normal?)

I encountered such pattern in makefile
CXXOBJ = f1.o f2.o f3.o
$(CXXOBJ): %.o: %.cpp
g++ -c $< -o $#
f1.o: f1.cpp f1.hpp f2.hpp
f2.o: f2.cpp f2.hpp f3.hpp macros.h
f3.o: f3.cpp f3.hpp
It works (at least with GNU make 4.0).
It uses generic recipe from 4th line,
but in addition uses dependencies defined at the bottom.
Questions
Is it standard make behavior? (or is it specific to GNU-make?)
Is it standard way to write make file? (i.e. are people usualy doing it this way or is it something 'exotic'?)
How exactly does it work?
How does make combine 2 distinct rules for same file? (just append dependency list or something more?)
(I was browsing through GNU-make manual, but could not find relevant part)
This is called static pattern rules (https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Static-Usage.html). It is specific to GNU make. It might be useful when different targets require different recipes to build, but match the same pattern.
As for third question, there are no distinct rules for the same file. Everything is quite well defined, each target have corresponding .cpp file.
GNU Make manual:
One file can be the target of several rules. All the dependencies
mentioned in all the rules are merged into one list of dependencies
for the target....
There can only be one set of commands to be executed for a file. If
more than one rule gives commands for the same file, make uses the
last set given and prints an error message...

Default rules in Make

Is there a mechanism in make to allow for default global implicit rules that are available anywhere, similar to the built-in rules?
Make provides some built-inimplicit rules for compiling C/C++/Fortran files, without even requiring a Makefile for simple cases. However, when compiling other languages (e.g. Go programming language files), a Makefile is always required. I would like to extend my Makeenvironment to have implicit rules available by default.
This is not normally desirable, as it would cause your Makefile to be less portable; it wouldn't work on somebody else's machine if they didn't have it set up that way.
However, if you want to do this, create a "global" Makefile somewhere with your default rules for Go files, then add its path to the MAKEFILES environment variable. This global Makefile will be processed before any Makefile when you run "make", just as if you had included its source at the top of the file.
I'm assuming you're referring to the fact that you can do
make hello.o
and make will automatically know how to make the .o from a .c file (or indeed from a .f or .p, if one exists) - but you want to do this for custom file types (say, building a .bar from a .foo.
The most portable way of doing this is as follows (in your Makefile):
.SUFFIXES: .foo .bar
.foo.bar:
foo2bar -in $> -out $#
The first line (.SUFFIXES) warns make that you'll be treating these as special suffixes; the second line says "here's a recipe for making a .bar from a .foo. The third line gives the command for doing this - $> and $# get changed by make to the input and output filenames.
NOTE: The indent for the third line MUST be a tab character.
A much more flexible method, that only works with GNU make, is to use its support for implicit rules. If you can guarantee you'll be using GNU make then this is probably to be recommended.
While I agree with dmazzoni, I just though I'd add my make recipe for a Go Makefile:
# Include default Golang Make magic
include $(GOROOT)/src/Make.$(GOARCH)
# Hack the following line
your_program: your_program.$O
$(LD) -o $# $^
# Compiles .go-files into architecture-specific binaries
%.$O: %.go
$(GC) -o $# $^
clean:
rm your_program *.$O
(Note: the $O is DOLLAR + UPPERCASE-o - not zero!)
While I haven't tested it on all the machines I have available, i believe it should port fairly well.

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