I am trying to create a Makefile and I am a bit stuck.
So far I have been compiling my 3 files (2 headers and one main program) as such:
gcc -c phypages.c -o phypages.o
gcc -c pagetable.c -o pagetable.o
gcc -c analysis.c -o analysis.o
gcc analysis.o phypages.o pagetable.o -o analysis
I would like to make a Makefile to help me out with this. When I compile and link the files without a Makefile everything works fine, however when I try to make a Makefile I get a bunch of errors. Could you give me some tips on how to go about making a basic Makefile?
This is a good start:
# Binary name
NAME = analysis
# Compiler settings
CC = gcc
CFLAGS += -Wall -Wextra
CFLAGS += -Werror
# Source files
SRCS = phypages.c \
pagetable.c \
analysis.c
# Object files
OBJS = $(SRCS:.c=.o)
RM = rm -f
# Default rule, it should call all your rules that create
# an executable, or build a library...
# Here, it calls only the $(NAME) rule, that builds `analysis`
all: $(NAME)
# Rule to build your object files and link them into a binary
$(NAME): $(OBJS)
$(CC) -o $(NAME) $(OBJS)
# Rule to remove object files
clean:
$(RM) $(OBJS)
# Rule to remove binary, calls the 'clean' rule first
fclean: clean
$(RM) $(NAME)
# Rule to remove object files and binary, then re-build everything
re: fclean all
# Rules that are not linked with a filename should be listed here
.PHONY: all clean fclean re
You can then run make analysis or simply make to build your program.
Next time you change a file, run make again and only the file you changed will be re-compiled, instead of the whole project.
I have created a Makefile like this
CC = sdcc
SRCS = $(PNAME).c\
../../src/gpio.c
../../src/timers.c
../../src/i2c.c
$HDRS = -I../../headers
all:
mkdir -p ./output
$(CC) $(SRCS) -lstm8 -mstm8 $(HDRS)
The problem is, sdcc can only compile one source at a time. So I need to perform something like a foreach on each source I have defined in SRCS variable. How to do this in gnu-make?
According to the docs, you must compile the files other than the one containing main() separately, to produce .rel files, then include those in the compilation command for the main file. There are several variations on how you could do that. The following avoids features specific to GNU make:
# We're assuming POSIX conformance
.POSIX:
CC = sdcc
# In case you ever want a different name for the main source file
MAINSRC = $(PMAIN).c
# These are the sources that must be compiled to .rel files:
EXTRASRCS = \
../../src/gpio.c \
../../src/timers.c \
../../src/i2c.c
# The list of .rel files can be derived from the list of their source files
RELS = $(EXTRASRCS:.c=.rel)
INCLUDES = -I../../headers
CFLAGS = -mstm8
LIBS = -lstm8
# This just provides the conventional target name "all"; it is optional
# Note: I assume you set PNAME via some means not exhibited in your original file
all: $(PNAME)
# How to build the overall program
$(PNAME): $(MAINSRC) $(RELS)
$(CC) $(INCLUDES) $(CFLAGS) $(MAINSRC) $(RELS) $(LIBS)
# How to build any .rel file from its corresponding .c file
# GNU would have you use a pattern rule for this, but that's GNU-specific
.c.rel:
$(CC) -c $(INCLUDES) $(CFLAGS) $<
# Suffixes appearing in suffix rules we care about.
# Necessary because .rel is not one of the standard suffixes.
.SUFFIXES: .c .rel
If you look carefully, by the way, you will see that the file does not explicitly perform any looping over the source files, or any such thing. It just describes how to build each target, including intermediate targets. make figures out on its own how to combine those rules to go from sources to final program (or to any other target you specify from among those you've taught it to build).
Use patsubst. Typically it is something like:
SOURCES := $(wildcard *.c)
OBJECTS := $(patsubst %.c,%.o,${SOURCES})
prog: ${OBJECTS}
cc $^ -o $#
%.o: %.c
cc $< -c -o $#
My question is a real simple one I just want to export everything that is not source code to a bin folder but all the answers that I find seem to have either loose chunks of complex makefile code without any indication to where to place it or very complex makefiles in general. I have no experience with make files and the documentation seems extremely poor so if one can give me the simplest answer to this problem I'd be very happy.
#
# Makefile for 2INC0 Interprocess Communication
#
# (c) Fontys 2010, Joris Geurts
#
BIN=./bin/
BINARIES = $(BIN)prime
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -c
LDLIBS = -lrt -lX11
%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $(BIN)$#
all: $(BINARIES)
clean:
rm -f *.o $(BINARIES)
prime: prime.o
prime.o: prime.c prime.h
Try this modification:
$(BIN)%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
$(BIN)prime: $(BIN)prime.o
$(BIN)prime.o: prime.h
The (almost universally followed) convention is to have a special target install that unconditionally copies all of the required files from the build tree into place. That place is usually configurable with a variable.
That way, you can always just remove the build tree after you're done building and installing.
So if all of the files you need to copy are executables, you get something like this:
DESTDIR = /usr/local
OBJS = $(*.c:%c=%.o)
EXES = $(OBJS:%.o=)
install: $(EXES)
cp -p $+ $(DESTDIR/bin/
(beware: untested). Which version of which make are you using?
I'm having some trouble understanding how to design my makefile to build my project the way I want to. Specifically, I can't figure out how to keep all source files in a src directory, while putting all binaries in a bin directory except the linked executable, which goes in the project root.
This is my makefile:
# Compiler options
FC := mpif90
FFLAGS := -O3 -g -Wall -Warray-bounds -ffixed-line-length-none -fbounds-check
VPATH := src
BINDIR := bin
# Define file extensions
.SUFFIXES:
.SUFFIXES: .f .o .mod
# All modules
OBJS := $(BINDIR)/ratecoeffs.o $(BINDIR)/interpolation.o $(BINDIR)/io.o $(BINDIR)/eedf.o $(BINDIR)/single_particle.o $(BINDIR)/physics.o $(BINDIR)/random.o $(BINDIR)/mpi.o $(BINDIR)/precision.o $(BINDIR)/populations.o
# Build rules
all: runner | $(BINDIR)
$(BINDIR):
mkdir -p $(BINDIR)
$(BINDIR)/%.o: $(VPATH)/%.f | $(BINDIR)
$(FC) $(FFLAGS) -c $^ -o $#
runner: $(OBJS)
clean:
#rm -rf $(BINDIR)
Running make builds everything allright - it finds all source files in src and puts all .o files in bin - but the module files (.mod) that are generated by the compiler are put in the project root instead of in the bin directory. I realize I could just specify a rule to place them there, but that messes with the build order, and will sometimes break the build.
What is the "correct" way to get this behavior?
And yes, I've looked at autotools and automake, but I've never used them before and they seem to be overkill for this project. As I couldn't find any good tutorials on how they work (no, I didn't like the tutorial on gnu.org) I'd prefer if I could avoid having to learn this tool just to get this work...
Assuming your underlying Fortran compiler is gfortran, use the -J command line option.
$(FC) $(FFLAGS) -c $^ -o $# -J$(BINDIR)
With an eye to the future, you may be better off creating a MODDIR or similar variable, that you use instead of BINDIR. Object code (*.o) and mod files have different roles to play in later compilation and linking steps - in larger projects they are often kept separate.
It would be probably more in the sense of the make system to change into the obj-directory and do the compilation from there. Via the VPATH option you can let make to find your source files automatically. You could easily call your makefile recursively from the right directory. Below you find a trivial example which would be straightforward to adapt to your case. Please note, that it only works with GNU make.
ifeq (1,$(RECURSED))
VPATH = $(SRCDIR)
########################################################################
# Project specific makefile
########################################################################
FC = gfortran
FCOPTS =
LN = $(FC)
LNOPTS =
OBJS = accuracy.o eqsolver.o io.o linsolve.o
linsolve: $(OBJS)
$(LN) $(LNOPTS) -o $# $^
%.o: %.f90
$(FC) $(FCOPTS) -c $<
.PHONY: clean realclean
clean:
rm -f *.mod *.o
realclean: clean
rm -f linsolve
accuracy.o:
eqsolver.o: accuracy.o
io.o: accuracy.o
linsolve.o: accuracy.o eqsolver.o io.o
else
########################################################################
# Recusive invokation
########################################################################
BUILDDIR = _build
LOCALGOALS = $(BUILDDIR) distclean
RECURSIVEGOALS = $(filter-out $(LOCALGOALS), $(MAKECMDGOALS))
.PHONY: all $(RECURSIVE_GOALS) distclean
all $(RECURSIVEGOALS): $(BUILDDIR)
+$(MAKE) -C $(BUILDDIR) -f $(CURDIR)/GNUmakefile SRCDIR=$(CURDIR) \
RECURSED=1 $(RECURSIVEGOALS)
$(BUILDDIR):
mkdir $(BUILDDIR)
distclean:
rm -rf $(BUILDDIR)
endif
The principle is simple:
In the first part you write your normal makefile, as if you would create the object files in the source directory. However, additionally you add the VPATH option to make sure the source files are found (as make will be in the directory BUILDDIR when this part of the makefile is processed).
In the second part (which is executed first, when the variable RECURSED is not set yet), you change to the BUILDIR directory and invoke your makefile from there. You pass some helper variables (e.g. the current directory) and all make goals, apart of those, which must be executed from outside BUILDDIR (e.g. distclean and the one creating BUILDDIR itself). The rules for those goals you specify also in the second part.
just for quick terminology:
#basic makefile rule
target: dependencies
recipe
The Problem: I want to generate the dependencies automatically.
For example, I am hoping to turn this:
#one of my targets
file.o: file.cpp 1.h 2.h 3.h 4.h 5.h 6.h 7.h 8.h another.h lots.h evenMore.h
$(COMPILE)
Into this:
#one of my targets
file.o: $(GENERATE)
$(COMPILE)
and I'm not too sure if it's possible..
What I do know:
I can use this compiler flag:
g++ -MM file.cpp
and it will return the proper target and dependency.
so from the example, it would return:
file.o: file.cpp 1.h 2.h 3.h 4.h 5.h 6.h 7.h 8.h another.h lots.h evenMore.h
however, 'make' does NOT allow me to explicitly write shell code in the target or dependency section of a rule :(
I know there is a 'make' function called shell
but I can't quite plug this in as dependency and do parsing magic because it relies on the macro $# which represents the target.. or at least I think that’s what the problem is
I've even tried just replacing the "file.cpp" dependency with this makefile function and that won't work either..
#it's suppose to turn the $# (file.o) into file.cpp
THE_CPP := $(addsuffix $(.cpp),$(basename $#))
#one of my targets
file.o: $(THE_CPP) 1.h 2.h 3.h 4.h 5.h 6.h 7.h 8.h another.h lots.h evenMore.h
$(COMPILE)
#this does not work
So all over google, there appear to be two solutions. both of which I don't fully grasp.
From GNU Make Manual
Some Site that says the GNU Make Manual one is out-of-date
So my ultimate question is: Is it possible to do it the way I want to do it,
and if not, can somebody break down the code from one of these sites and explain to me in detail how they work. I'll implement it one of these ways if I have to, but I'm weary to just paste a chunk of code into my makefile before understanding it
Newer versions of GCC have an -MP option which can be used with -MD. I simply added -MP and -MD to the CPPFLAGS variable for my project (I did not write a custom recipe for compiling C++) and added an "-include $(SRC:.cpp=.d)" line.
Using -MD and -MP gives a dependency file which includes both the dependencies (without having to use some weird sed) and dummy targets (so that deleting header files will not cause errors).
To manipulate the filenames when you already know what the dependencies should be, you can use a pattern rule:
file.o: %.o : %.cpp 1.h 2.h 3.h 4.h 5.h 6.h 7.h 8.h another.h lots.h evenMore.h
$(COMPILE)
And you can reuse the rule for other targets:
# Note these two rules without recipes:
file.o: 1.h 2.h 3.h 4.h 5.h 6.h 7.h 8.h another.h lots.h evenMore.h
anotherFile.o: 4.h 9.h yetAnother.h
file.o anotherFile.o: %.o : %.cpp
$(COMPILE)
But if you want Make to figure out the list of dependencies automatically, the best way (that I know of) is Advanced Auto-Dependency Generation. It looks like this:
%.o : %.cc
#g++ -MD -c -o $# $<
#cp $*.d $*.P; \
sed -e 's/#.*//' -e 's/^[^:]*: *//' -e 's/ *\\$$//' \
-e '/^$$/ d' -e 's/$$/ :/' < $*.d >> $*.P; \
rm -f $*.d
-include *.P
Basically, when it builds file.o, it also builds file.d. Then it runs file.d through a bewildering sed command that turns the list of dependencies into a rule with no recipes. The last line is an instruction to include any such rules that exist. The logic here is subtle and ingenious: you don't actually need the dependencies the first time you build foo.o, because Make already knows that foo.o must be built, because it doesn't exist. The next time you run Make, it will use the dependency list it created last time. If you change one of the files so that there is actually a new dependency which is not in the list, Make will still rebuild foo.o because you changed a file which was a dependency. Try it, it really works!
Excellent answers but in my build I put the .obj files in a subdirectory based on build type (ie: debug vs. release). So for example, if I'm building debug, I put all the object files in a build/debug folder. It was a mind-numbing task to try to get the multiline sed command above to use the correct destination folder, but after some experimentation, I stumbled on a solution that works great for my build. Hopefully it'll help someone else as well.
Here's a snippet:
# List my sources
CPP_SOURCES := foo.cpp bar.cpp
# If I'm debugging, change my output location
ifeq (1,$(DEBUG))
OBJ_DIR:=./obj/debug
CXXFLAGS+= -g -DDEBUG -O0 -std=c++0x
else
CXXFLAGS+= -s -O2
OBJ_DIR:=./obj/release
endif
# destination path macro we'll use below
df = $(OBJ_DIR)/$(*F)
# create a list of auto dependencies
AUTODEPS:= $(patsubst %.cpp,$(OBJ_DIR)/%.d,$(CPP_SOURCES))
# include by auto dependencies
-include $(AUTODEPS)
.... other rules
# and last but not least my generic compiler rule
$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: %.cpp
## Build the dependency file
#$(CXX) -MM -MP -MT $(df).o -MT $(df).d $(CXXFLAGS) $< > $(df).d
## Compile the object file
#echo " C++ : " $< " => " $#
#$(CXX) -c $< $(CXXFLAGS) -o $#
Now for the details:
The first execution of CXX in my generic build rule is the interesting one. Note that I'm not using any "sed" commands. Newer versions of gcc do everything I needed (I'm using gcc 4.7.2).
-MM builds the main dependency rule including project headers but not system headers. If I left it like this, my .obj file would NOT have the correct path. So I use the -MT option to specify the "real" path to my .obj destination. (using the "df" macro I created).
I also use a second -MT option to make sure the resulting dependency file (ie: .d file) has the correct path, and that it is included in the target list and therefor has the same dependencies as the source file.
Last but not least is the inclusion of the -MP option. This tell gcc to also make stubbed rules for each header solving the problem that occurs if I delete a header causing make to generate an error.
I suspect that since I'm using gcc for all the dependency generation instead of piping out to sed, my build is faster (although I've yet to prove that since my build is relatively small at this point). If you see ways I can improve upon this, I'm always open to suggestions. Enjoy
For the record, this is how I generate dependencies automatically now:
CPPFLAGS = -std=c++1y -MD -MP
SRC = $(wildcard *.cpp)
all: main
main: $(SRC:%.cpp=%.o)
g++ $(CPPFLAGS) -o $# $^
-include $(SRC:%.cpp=%.d)
The compiler flags -MD and -MP help do the trick.
First, you can have THE_CPP=$(patsubst %.o,%.cpp,$#)
Then you can run make -p to understand the builtin rules of make
A usual way of doing could be to generate the makefile dependencies into *.md files:
%.o: %.c
$(COMPILE.c) $(OUTPUT_OPTION) $< -MMD -MF $(patsubst %.c,%.md,$#)
and later in your Makefile including them with something like
-include $(wildcard *.md)
But you can also consider using other builders like omake and many many others
WOOO! I did manage to get the code in Beta's post to work on a small test project.
I should note, for anyone else who may come across this,
If you're using the bash shell(which I was), you will need to add an escape character in front of the pound sign to escape from making the rest of the expression a comment. (see 4th line of code)
%.o : %.cpp
g++ -c -MD -o $# $<
cp $*.d $*.P; \
sed -e 's/\#.*//' -e 's/^[^:]*: *//' -e 's/ *\\$$//' \
-e '/^$$/ d' -e 's/$$/ :/' < $*.d >> $*.P; \
rm -f $*.d
-include *.P
Now I want to share information that I found in Managing Projects with GNU Make, 3rd Edition. because it's points out some important issues on this matter, and supplies code that I still don't fully grasp yet.
A method appears in the book that is similar to the method found on the Make manual page.
It looks like this:
include $(subst .c,.d,$(SOURCES))
%.d: %.c
$(CC) -M $(CPPFLAGS) $< > $#.$$$$; \
sed 's,\($*\).o[ :]*,\1.o $# : ,g' < $#.$$$$ > $#; \
rm -f $#.$$$$
This is what I believe is happening.
Right away, 'make' wants to include a ".d" file for every source file.
Because no .d files initially exist, the chunk of code is ran again and again in order to create all the missing .d files.
This means make will start over again and again until every .d file is created and included in the makefile.
Each ".d" file is what Beta said: a target with a set of dependencies and NO recipe.
If a header file is ever changed, those rules that are included in, will need the dependencies updated first. This is what throws me off a bit, how is it that the chunk of code is able to be called again? It is used to update .d files, so if a .h file changes how does it get called? Aside from this, I realize that the default rule is used to compile the object. Any clarifications/misconceptions to this explanation are appreciated.
Later in the book it points out problems with this method, and problems that I believe also exist in the Advanced Auto-Dependency Generation implementation.
Problem 1: It's inefficient. 'make' must restart every time it makes a .d file
Problem 2: make generates warning messages for all the missing .d files- Which is mostly just a nuisance and can be hidden by adding a "-" in front of the include statement.
Problem 3: If you delete a src file because it's no longer needed, 'make' will crash the next time you try to compile because some .d file has the missing src as a dependency, and because there is no rule to recreate that src, make will refuse to go any further.
They say a fix to these issues is Tromey's method, but the code looks very different from the code on the website. Perhaps it's just because they used some macros, made it a function call, and wrote it slightly different. I'm still looking into it, but wanted to share some discoveries I've made so far. Hopefully this opens up a little bit more discussion, and gets me closer to the bottom of all this.
A simple and elegant solution, inclusive of a detailed explanation of how it works, is available here.
DEPDIR := .deps
DEPFLAGS = -MT $# -MMD -MP -MF $(DEPDIR)/$*.d
%.o : %.cpp
%.o : %.cpp $(DEPDIR)/%.d | $(DEPDIR)
g++ -c $(DEPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) $<
$(DEPDIR): ; #mkdir -p $#
DEPFILES := $(SRCS:%.c=$(DEPDIR)/%.d)
$(DEPFILES):
include $(wildcard $(DEPFILES))
I prefer to use $(shell ...) function with find. Here is a sample of one of my Makefiles:
SRCDIR = src
OBJDIR = obj
LIBDIR = lib
DOCDIR = doc
# Get Only the Internal Structure of Directories from SRCDIR
STRUCTURE := $(shell find $(SRCDIR) -type d)
#Filter-out hidden directories
STRUCTURE := $(filter-out $(shell find $(SRCDIR)/.* -type d),$(STRUCTURE))
# Get All Files From STRUCTURE
CODEFILES := $(addsuffix /*,$(STRUCTURE))
CODEFILES := $(wildcard $(CODEFILES))
## Filter Only Specific Files
SRCFILES := $(filter %.c,$(CODEFILES))
HDRFILES := $(filter %.h,$(CODEFILES))
OBJFILES := $(subst $(SRCDIR),$(OBJDIR),$(SRCFILES:%.c=%.o))
DOCFILES := $(addprefix $(DOCDIR)/, \
$(addsuffix .md, \
$(basename $(SRCFILES))))
# Filter Out Function main for Libraries
LIBDEPS := $(filter-out $(OBJDIR)/main.o,$(OBJFILES))
In this approach, I first get all the internal directory structure, with any depth. Then I get all files inside the Structure. At this time, I can use filter, filter-out, addsuffix, etc, to get exactly what I need at each time.
This example covers *.c files, but you can change it to *.cpp as well.
Building on the content of the Auto-Dependency Generation article referenced in comments on a previous post at I've created an annotated makefile project which includes a generic Makefile annotated with comments and implemented for a simple project with 3 .c files and 2 .h files. See full Makefile content below. Simple projects should be able to just customize the TODO section
# See http://make.mad-scientist.net/papers/advanced-auto-dependency-generation/
# for the template used to start this file
# -- TODO: customize the list below for your project ---
# List of source .c files used with the project
SRCS := main.c file1.c file2.c
# The aplication generated
APPNAME = depend-generation-test
# -- End of customization section ---
# Replace .c extension on SRCS to get objfiles using gnu make pattern rules and substitution references.
# See https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Pattern-Intro.html#Pattern-Intro for pattern rules and
# https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Substitution-Refs.html#Substitution-Refs for substitution references overview
OBJFILES := $(SRCS:%.c=%.o)
# Build the app you've specified in APPNAME for the "all" or "default" target
all : $(APPNAME)
default : $(APPNAME)
# Remove all build intermediates and output file
clean : ; #rm -rf $(APPNAME) *.o
# Build the application by running the link step with all objfile inputs
$(APPNAME) : $(OBJFILES)
$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $^ -o $(APPNAME)
# Add all warnings/errors to cflags default. This is not required but is a best practice
CFLAGS += -Wall -Werror
# The below content is from http://make.mad-scientist.net/papers/advanced-auto-dependency-generation/
# with the following changes:
# 1) Added comments
# 2) Removed TARGET_ARCH from COMPILE.c since it's no longer listed in the [default rules](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Catalogue-of-Rules.html#Catalogue-of-Rules) and [isn't documented](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-make/2010-06/msg00005.html)
# Original content below is:
# Copyright © 1997-2019 Paul D. Smith Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
# The directory (hidden) where dependency files will be stored
DEPDIR := .deps
# Flags passed to gcc to automatically build dependencies when compiling
# See https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Automatic-Variables.html for detail about variable names
# $# references the target file of the rule and will be "main.o" when compiling "main.c"
# $* references the stem of the rule, and will be "main" when target is "main.o"
DEPFLAGS = -MT $# -MMD -MP -MF $(DEPDIR)/$*.d
# Rules for compiling a C file, including DEPFLAGS along with Implicit GCC variables.
# See https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Implicit-Variables.html
# and see https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Catalogue-of-Rules.html#Catalogue-of-Rules
# for the default c rule
COMPILE.c = $(CC) $(DEPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) $(CPPFLAGS) -c
# Delete the built-in rules for building object files from .c files
%.o : %.c
# Define a rule to build object files based on .c or dependency files by making the associated dependency file
# a prerequisite of the target. Make the DEPDIR an order only prerequisite of the target, so it will be created when needed, meaning
# the targets won't get rebuilt when the timestamp on DEPDIR changes
# See https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Prerequisite-Types.html for order only prerequesites overview.
%.o : %.c $(DEPDIR)/%.d | $(DEPDIR)
$(COMPILE.c) $(OUTPUT_OPTION) $<
# Create the DEPDIR when it doesn't exist
$(DEPDIR): ; #mkdir -p $#
# Use pattern rules to build a list of DEPFILES
DEPFILES := $(SRCS:%.c=$(DEPDIR)/%.d)
# Mention each of the dependency files as a target, so make won't fail if the file doesn't exist
$(DEPFILES):
# Include all dependency files which exist, to include the relevant targets.
# See https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Wildcard-Function.html for wildcard function documentation
include $(wildcard $(DEPFILES))