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This is my first ever post to stackoverflow. It ought to be straightforward, but I have this problem whenever I try to write a makefile and I've never been able to figure out a satisfactory solution. Apologies if there is already a solution somewhere on the site. I couldn't find one.
What I'm trying to do is as follows:
Search my src directory for matching source files.
Compile the src code into a sandbox.
Here's my directory structure:
makefile
src1
file1.src
file2.src
src2
file3.src
subfolder
src3
file4.src
file5.src
And here's my makefile:
BUILDDIR := ./sandbox
SRC_DIRS := ./
SRCS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -name *.src)
OBJS := $(addprefix $(BUILDDIR)/o., $(notdir $(SRCS) ) )
# make print-X prints value of variable X
print-%: ; #echo $* = $($*)
.PHONY: help
help:
#echo "make <all|clean>"
.PHONY: all
all: $(OBJS)
#echo "compilation done"
$(OBJS) : $(SRCS) $(BUILDDIR)/.create
#echo "\"compiling\" $< to produce $#"
cp $< $#
$(BUILDDIR)/.create:
#echo "creating sandbox"
mkdir -p $(BUILDDIR) && cd $(BUILDDIR)
#touch $#
.PHONY: clean
clean:
#echo "deleting sandbox"
#rm -rf $(BUILDDIR)
If I type make all, the file works as expected. However, if I type make all again, instead of saying everything is up to data, I end up with the following contents in the sandbox:
o.file1.src o.file2.src o.file3.src o.file4.src o.file5.src o.o.file1.src o.o.file2.src o.o.file3.src o.o.file4.src o.o.file5.src
And the process of creating objects of objects continues recursively as many times as I type make.
Any help would be appreciated.
Incidentally, please don't post solutions that rely on the build in compile functions of make. I'm looking for a general solution that can be used for any task. For example, in this instance, I'm trying to read the source files into a tool using its command line interface.
Well, first, by having your sandbox as a subdirectory of your source directory, then using find on the source directory, every time you run it you're going to find all the files in both the source directory and all its subdirectories, including the sandbox. If the built files in the sandbox have the same names as the files in the source directories, the find will find them all.
Maybe instead of:
SRCS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -name *.src)
you want something like:
SRCS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -name $(notdir $(BUILDDIR)) -prune -o -name *.src -print)
Or, alternatively, don't make your sandbox a subdirectory of your source directory. Or, make sure that whatever name you give to the files in the sandbox directory won't match the *.src pattern you give to find.
But beyond that this is wrong:
$(OBJS) : $(SRCS) $(BUILDDIR)/.create
Suppose SRCS is foo.src bar.src, which means OBJS is sandbox/o.foo.src sandbox/o.bar.src. Then the above expands to this:
sandbox/o.foo.src sandbox/o.bar.src : foo.src bar.src sandbox/.create
This is a common mistake; people seem to think that make will go through the targets and prerequisites and match them up, so the first target depends on the first prerequisite and the second target depends on the second one etc. but of course this cannot work correctly and that's not how make works. Make treats the above as if you'd written one rule for each target, with the same prerequisites; like this:
sandbox/o.foo.src : foo.src bar.src sandbox/.create
sandbox/o.bar.src : foo.src bar.src sandbox/.create
You can see this won't do what you want at all, since the $< will always be foo.src which is clearly wrong.
You need to write a single pattern rule that will build ONE target. Then make sure the pattern applies to all the targets.
You have made things hard for yourself by trying to "flatten" a directory structure of multiple source subdirectories, into a single level of target directory (by using the $(notdir $(SRCS))). Because of this, there's no pattern that will match the same target and directory, unless you write a separate rule for every subdirectory.
Luckily there is a solution for this: VPATH. This should work for you:
VPATH := $(sort $(dir $(SRCS))
$(BUILDDIR)/o.%.src : %.src $(BUILDDIR)/.create
#echo "\"compiling\" $< to produce $#"
cp $< $#
The VPATH tells make to go look in all the directories that it found any sources in, whenever it can't find one to build.
The basic problem is that your SRCS is all files in all subdirectories that match the pattern *.src (when you run make). That means that all your object files ($(OBJS)) also match, so they copied as well.
The solution is to change your SRCS pattern so it does not match the "object" files in the build directory. Possibilities:
SRCS := $(wildcard *.src)
or
SRCS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -name $(notdir $(BUILDDIR)) -prune -false -o -name *.src)
or change the names of your "object" files so they don't end in .src
If I type make all, the file works as expected.
By which I take you to mean that directory ./sandbox exists and contains these files:
o.file1.src
o.file2.src
o.file3.src
o.file4.src
o.file5.src
However, if I type make all again, instead of saying everything is up to data, I end up with the following contents in the sandbox:
o.file1.src o.file2.src o.file3.src o.file4.src o.file5.src o.o.file1.src o.o.file2.src o.o.file3.src o.o.file4.src o.o.file5.src
Of course you do, because everything is not up to date at that point, according to the target list you create. This line ...
SRCS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -name *.src)
... defines SRCS as a list of all the files under path ./ (which is the value of SRC_DIRS) that ends in .src. That includes any such files in ./sandbox, which include all the files placed there by the first make run. You generate a corresponding target file to build for each source, and those targets corresponding to sources built by the previous make run will not, in general, exist yet. So make builds them, just as you instructed it.
The best solution, short of abandoning that automatic source identification altogether, would probably be to change your naming scheme so that outputs cannot be mistaken so easily for sources. For example, if you want the output names to have the form foo.src, then have the corresponding input named something like foo.src.in. In that particular case, you could convert from source names to target names with
OBJS := $(addprefix $(BUILDDIR)/o., $(basename $(notdir $(SRCS) ) ) )
Alternatively, you could modify the find command to skip the sandbox directory, maybe by modifying SRC_DIRS:
SRC_DIRS = src1 src2 subfolder/src3
(These specific alternatives are not mutually exclusive.)
I am trying to statically build HTML files that requires a markdown file and a meta file called "whatlinkshere" for the HTML file to demonstrate its back links.
I believe it can be effeciently done by a Makefile, by first generating all the "whatlinkshere" files. I don't think this can be done in parallel, because the program that generates these files needs to append to the whatlinkshere files, and there could be race conditions that I am not quite sure how to solve.
Once the "whatlinkshere" files are generated then if a markdown file is edited, say foo.mdwn to point to bar.mdwn, only foo.mdwn needs to be analysed again for "whatlinkshere" changes. And finally only foo.html and bar.html need to be rebuilt.
I am struggling to accomplish this in my backlinks project.
INFILES = $(shell find . -name "*.mdwn")
OUTFILES = $(INFILES:.mdwn=.html)
LINKFILES = $(INFILES:.mdwn=.whatlinkshere)
all: $(OUTFILES)
# These need to be all made before the HTML is processed
$(LINKFILES): $(INFILES)
#echo Creating backlinks $#
#touch $#
#go run backlinks.go $<
%.html: %.mdwn %.whatlinkshere
#echo Deps $^
#cmark $^ > $#
Current problems here is that *.whatlinkshere** aren't being generated on first run. My workaround is for i in *.mdwn; do go run backlinks.go $i; done. Furthermore there are not rebuilding as I want after editing a file as described earlier. Something is horribly wrong. What am I missing?
I think I finally understood your problem. If I understood well:
You have a bunch of *.mdwn source files.
You generate *.whatlinkshere files from your *.mdwn source files using the backlinks.go utility. But this utility does not produce foo.whatlinkshere from foo.mdwn. It analyzes foo.mdwn, searches for links to other pages in it and, for each link to bar it finds, it appends a [foo](foo.html) reference to bar.whatlinkshere.
From each foo.mdwn source file you want to build a corresponding foo.html file with:
$ cmark foo.mdwn foo.whatlinkshere
Your rule:
$(LINKFILES): $(INFILES)
#echo Creating backlinks $#
#touch $#
#go run backlinks.go $<
contains one error and has several drawbacks. The error is the use of the $< automatic variable in the recipe. It expands as the first prerequisite, that is probably always pageA.mdwn in your case. Not what you want. $^ expands as all prerequisites but it is not the correct solution because:
your go utility takes only one source file name, but even if it was accepting several...
...make will run the recipe several times, one per link file, which is a waste, and...
...as your go utility appends to the link files it will even be worse than a waste: back links will be counted several times each, and...
...if make runs in parallel mode (note that you can prevent this with make -j1 or by adding the .NOTPARALLEL: special rule to your Makefile, but it is a pity) there is a risk of race conditions.
Important: the following works only with a flat organization where all source files and HTML files are in the same directory as the Makefile. Other organizations are possible, of course, but they would require some modifications.
First option using multi-targets pattern rules
One possibility is to use a special property of make pattern rules: when they have several targets make considers that one single execution of the recipe produces all targets. For instance:
pageA.w%e pageB.w%e pageC.w%e: pageA.mdwn pageB.mdwn pageC.mdwn
for m in $^; do go run backlinks.go $$m; done
tells make that pageA.whatlinkshere, pageB.whatlinkshere and pageC.whatlinkshere are all generated by one execution of:
for m in pageA.mdwn pageB.mdwn pageC.mdwn; do go run backlinks.go $m; done
(make expands $^ as all prerequisites and $$m as $m). Of course, we want to automate the computation of the pageA.w%e pageB.w%e pageC.w%e pattern targets list. This should make it:
INFILES := $(shell find . -name "*.mdwn")
OUTFILES := $(INFILES:.mdwn=.html)
LINKFILES := $(INFILES:.mdwn=.whatlinkshere)
LINKPATTERN := $(INFILES:.mdwn=.w%e)
.PHONY: all clean
.PRECIOUS: $(LINKFILES)
all: $(OUTFILES)
# These need to be all made before the HTML is processed
$(LINKPATTERN): $(INFILES)
#echo Creating backlinks
#rm -f $(LINKFILES)
#touch $(LINKFILES)
#for m in $^; do go run backlinks.go $$m; done
%.html: %.mdwn %.whatlinkshere
#echo Deps $^
#cmark $^ > $#
clean:
rm -f $(LINKFILES) $(OUTFILES)
Notes:
I declared all and clean as phony because... it is what they are.
I declared the whatlinkshere files as precious because (some of them) are considered by make as intermediates and without this declaration make would delete them after building the HTML files.
In the recipe for the whatlinkshere files I added rm -f $(LINKFILES) such that, if the recipe is executed, we restart from a clean state instead of concatenating new stuff to old (possibly outdated) references.
The pattern stem in the $(LINKPATTERN) can be anything but must match at least one character. I used w%e but whatlin%shere would work too. Use whatever is specific enough in your case. If you have a pageB.where file prefer whatlin%shere or what%here.
There is a drawback with this solution but it is due to your particular set-up: each time one single mdwn file changes it must be re-analyzed (which is normal) but any whatlinkshere file can be impacted. This is not predictable, it depends on the links that have been modified in this source file. But more problematic is the fact that the result of this analysis is appended to the impacted whatlinkshere files. They are not "edited" with the old content relative to this source file replaced by the new one. So, if you change just a comment in a source file, all its links will be appended again to the respective whatlinkshere files (while they are already there). This is probably not what you want.
This is why the solution above deletes all whatlinkshere files and re-analyzes all source files each time one single source file changes. And another negative consequence is that all HTML files must also be re-generated because all whatlinkshere files changed (even if their content did not really change, but make does not know this). If the analysis is super fast and you have a small number of mdwn files, it should be OK. Else it is sub-optimal but not easy to solve because of your particular set-up.
Second option using recursive make, separated back link files and marker files
There is a possibility, however, which consists in:
separating all back links references with one whatlinkshere file per from/to pair: foo.backlinks/bar.whatlinkshere contains all references to bar found in foo.mdwn,
using recursive make with one first invocation (when the STEP make variable is unset) to update all whatlinkshere files that need to be and a second invocation (STEP set to 2) to generate the HTML files that need to be,
using empty dummy files to mark that a foo.mdwn file has been analyzed: foo.backlinks/.done,
using the secondary expansion to be able to refer to the stem of a pattern rule in its list of prerequisites (and using $$ to escape the fist expansion).
But it is probably a bit more difficult to understand (and maintain).
INFILES := $(shell find . -name "*.mdwn")
OUTFILES := $(INFILES:.mdwn=.html)
DONEFILES := $(patsubst %.mdwn,%.backlinks/.done,$(INFILES))
.PHONY: all clean
ifeq ($(STEP),)
all $(OUTFILES): $(DONEFILES)
$(MAKE) STEP=2 $#
%.backlinks/.done: %.mdwn
rm -rf $(dir $#)
mkdir -p $(dir $#)
cp $< $(dir $#)
cd $(dir $#); go run ../backlinks.go $<; rm $<
touch $#
else
all: $(OUTFILES)
.SECONDEXPANSION:
%.html: %.mdwn $$(wildcard *.backlinks/$$*.whatlinkshere)
#echo Deps $^
#cmark $^ > $#
endif
clean:
rm -rf *.backlinks $(OUTFILES)
Even if it looks more complicated there are a few advantages with this version:
only outdated targets are rebuilt and only once each,
all whatlinkshere files are updated (if needed) before any HTML file is updated (if needed),
the whatlinkshere files can be built in parallel,
the HTML files can be built in parallel.
Third option using only recursive make and marker files
If you do not care about inaccurate results where back links persist in the results after they disappeared from the source files or where back links are uselessly replicated, we can reuse ideas from the previous solution but drop the separation in individual from/to whatlinkshere files.
INFILES := $(wildcard *.mdwn)
OUTFILES := $(patsubst %.mdwn,%.html,$(INFILES))
LINKFILES := $(patsubst %.mdwn,%.whatlinkshere,$(INFILES))
DONEFILES := $(patsubst %.mdwn,.%.done,$(INFILES))
.PHONY: all clean
.PRECIOUS: $(LINKFILES)
ifeq ($(STEP),)
.NOTPARALLEL:
all $(OUTFILES): $(DONEFILES)
$(MAKE) STEP=2 $#
.%.done: %.mdwn
go run backlinks.go $<
touch $#
else
all: $(OUTFILES)
%.html: %.mdwn %.whatlinkshere
#echo Deps $^
#cmark $^ > $#
%.whatlinkshere:
touch $#
endif
clean:
rm -f $(OUTFILES) $(LINKFILES) $(DONEFILES)
Notes:
As this works only for a flat organization I replaced the $(shell find...) by the make built-in $(wildcard ...).
I used patsubst instead of the old syntax but it's just a matter of taste.
The %.whatlinkshere: rule is a default rule to create the missing empty whatlinkshere files.
The NOTPARALLEL: special target prevents parallel execution when building the whatlinkshere files.
Hi!
I started messing with makefiles a few days ago, so I gave myself a exercise to learn as well as making my life easier.
I basically want to read the directory the makefile is in (root) and use luamin to compress the file as much as possible before I deploy it to our server. But I would like to have it as flexible as possible, so depending on where said file is in the directory it should mirror it to the server.
So if it finds a file in a sub folder called home it should create a new folder with the same name with the compressed file within. I have gotten the compression of files in the root folder working as well as creation of the directories where the files should reside.
objs = $(wildcard *.lua)
dirs = $(wildcard */)
compress: $(objs)
mkdir -p .build
luamin -f $(objs) > .build/$(objs)
mkdir .build/$(dirs)
clean:
rm -rf ./.build
deploy: .build
cp ./.build/* ~
If you use GNU make, there are several features that really help to do what you want. Warning: this works if and only if your file names do not contain spaces:
srcfiles := $(shell find . -path .build -prune -o -type f -name '*.lua' -print)
dstfiles := $(addprefix .build/,$(srcfiles))
.PHONY: compress clean deploy
compress: $(dstfiles)
$(dstfiles): .build/%: %
mkdir -p $(dir $#)
luamin -f $< > $#
clean:
rm -rf ./.build
deploy: .build
cp ./.build/* ~
Explanation:
The shell make function is used to run the find command that searches all subdirectories, except .build, for *.lua files. The result is assigned to the srcfiles make variable.
The addprefix make function is used to add the .build/ prefix to all words of the srcfiles make variable and assign the result to the dstfiles make variable.
The compress target is the first (real) target in the Makefile. It is thus the default goal that gets run when invoking just make. It is the same as invoking make compress. The compress target is declared as phony. This tells make that it is not a real file, just like clean and deploy. The compress target depends on all destination files. If one is missing or older than its corresponding source file, it must be rebuilt.
The make static pattern rule $(dstfiles): .build/%: %... declares a generic rule where each destination file (.build/./foo/bar/baz.lua) depends on the corresponding source file (./foo/bar/baz.lua). The recipe creates the destination directory (./foo/bar/), computed thanks to the dir make function. Then, it applies the luamin command. The recipe makes use of the $# and $< automatic variables.
I have a "lib" directory in my applications main directory, which contains an arbitrary number of subdirectories, each having its own Makefile.
I would like to have a single Makefile in the main directory, that calls each subdirectory's Makefile. I know this is possible if I manually list the subdirs, but I would like to have it done automatically.
I was thinking of something like the following, but it obviously does not work. Note that I also have clean, test, etc. targets, so % is probably not a good idea at all.
LIBS=lib/*
all: $(LIBS)
%:
(cd $#; $(MAKE))
Any help is appreciated!
The following will work with GNU make:
LIBS=$(wildcard lib/*)
all: $(LIBS)
.PHONY: force
$(LIBS): force
cd $# && pwd
If there might be something other than directories in lib, you could alternatively use:
LIBS=$(shell find lib -type d)
To address the multiple targets issue, you can build special targets for each directory, then strip off the prefix for the sub-build:
LIBS=$(wildcard lib/*)
clean_LIBS=$(addprefix clean_,$(LIBS))
all: $(LIBS)
clean: $(clean_LIBS)
.PHONY: force
$(LIBS): force
echo make -C $#
$(clean_LIBS): force
echo make -C $(patsubst clean_%,%,$#) clean
There is also a way of listing sub-directories with gmake commands only, without using any shell commands:
test:
#echo $(filter %/, $(wildcard lib/*/))
This will list all sub-directories with trailing '/'. To remove it you can use the substitute pattern:
subdirs = $(filter %/, $(wildcard lib/*/))
test:
#echo $(subdirs:%/=%)
Then to actually create rules executing makefiles in each sub-directory you can use a small trick - a phony target in a non-existent directory. I think in this case an example will tell more than any explanation:
FULL_DIRS =$(filter %/, $(wildcard lib/*/))
LIB_DIRS =$(FULL_DIRS:%/=%)
DIRS_CMD =$(foreach subdir, $(LIB_DIRS), make-rule/$(subdir))
make-rule/%:
cd $* && $(MAKE)
all: DIRS_CMD
Basically, target 'all' lists all sub-directories as prerequisites. For example, if LIB_DIRS contained lib/folder1 lib/folder2 then the expansion would look like this:
all: make-rule/lib/folder1 make-rule/lib/folder2
Then 'make', in order to execute rule 'all', tries to match each prerequisite with an existing target. In this case the target is 'make-rule/%:', which uses '$*' to extract the string after 'make-rule/' and uses it as argument in the recipe. For example, the first prerequisite would be matched and expanded like this:
make-rule/lib/folder1:
cd lib/folder1 && $(MAKE)
What if you want to call different targets than all in an unknown number of subdirectories?
The following Makefile uses macros so create a forwarding dummy-target for a number of subdirectories to apply the given target from the command line to each of them:
# all direct directories of this dir. uses "-printf" to get rid of the "./"
DIRS=$(shell find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -not -name ".*" -printf '%P\n')
# "all" target is there by default, same logic as via the macro
all: $(DIRS)
$(DIRS):
$(MAKE) -C $#
.PHONY: $(DIRS)
# if explcit targets where given: use them in the macro down below. each target will be delivered to each subdirectory contained in $(DIRS).
EXTRA_TARGETS=$(MAKECMDGOALS)
define RECURSIVE_MAKE_WITH_TARGET
# create new variable, with the name of the target as prefix. it holds all
# subdirectories with the target as suffix
$(1)_DIRS=$$(addprefix $(1)_,$$(DIRS))
# create new target with the variable holding all the subdirectories+suffix as
# prerequisite
$(1): $$($1_DIRS)
# use list to create target to fullfill prerequisite. the rule is to call
# recursive make into the subdir with the target
$$($(1)_DIRS):
$$(MAKE) -C $$(patsubst $(1)_%,%,$$#) $(1)
# and make all targets .PHONY
.PHONY: $$($(1)_DIRS)
endef
# evaluate the macro for all given list of targets
$(foreach t,$(EXTRA_TARGETS),$(eval $(call RECURSIVE_MAKE_WITH_TARGET,$(t))))
Hope this helps. Really helpfull when dealing with paralelism: make -j12 clean all in a tree with makefiles having these targets... As always: playing with make is dangerous, different meta-levels of programming are too close together ,-)
I want to create directories using makefile. My project directory is like this
+--Project
+--output
+--source
+Testfile.cpp
+Makefile
I want to put all the objects and output into the respective output folder. I want to create folder structure which would be like this after compiling.
+--Project
+--output
+--debug (or release)
+--objs
+Testfile.o
+Testfile (my executable file)
+--source
+Testfile.cpp
+Makefile
I tried with several options, but could not succeed. Please help me to make directories using make file. I'm posting my Makefile for your consideration.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Input dirs, names, files
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTPUT_ROOT := output/
TITLE_NAME := TestProj
ifdef DEBUG
TITLE_NAME += _DEBUG
else
ifdef RELEASE
TITLE_NAME += _RELEASE
endif
endif
# Include all the source files here with the directory tree
SOURCES := \
source/TestFile.cpp \
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# configs
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
ifdef DEBUG
OUT_DIR := $(OUTPUT_ROOT)debug
CC_FLAGS := -c -Wall
else
ifdef RELEASE
OUT_DIR := $(OUTPUT_ROOT)release
CC_FLAGS := -c -Wall
else
$(error no build type defined)
endif
endif
# Put objects in the output directory.
OUT_O_DIR := $(OUT_DIR)/objs
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# settings
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
OBJS = $(SOURCES:.cpp=.o)
DIRS = $(subst /,/,$(sort $(dir $(OBJS))))
DIR_TARGET = $(OUT_DIR)
OUTPUT_TARGET = $(OUT_DIR)/$(TITLE_NAME)
CC_FLAGS +=
LCF_FLAGS :=
LD_FLAGS :=
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# executables
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
MD := mkdir
RM := rm
CC := g++
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# rules
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
.PHONY: all clean title
all: title
clean:
$(RM) -rf $(OUT_DIR)
$(DIR_TARGET):
$(MD) -p $(DIRS)
.cpp.o:
#$(CC) -c $< -o $#
$(OBJS): $(OUT_O_DIR)/%.o: %.cpp
#$(CC) -c $< -o $#
title: $(DIR_TARGET) $(OBJS)
In my opinion, directories should not be considered targets of your makefile, either in technical or in design sense. You should create files and if a file creation needs a new directory then quietly create the directory within the rule for the relevant file.
If you're targeting a usual or "patterned" file, just use make's internal variable $(#D), that means "the directory the current target resides in" (cmp. with $# for the target). For example,
$(OUT_O_DIR)/%.o: %.cpp
#mkdir -p $(#D)
#$(CC) -c $< -o $#
title: $(OBJS)
Then, you're effectively doing the same: create directories for all $(OBJS), but you'll do it in a less complicated way.
The same policy (files are targets, directories never are) is used in various applications. For example, git revision control system doesn't store directories.
Note: If you're going to use it, it might be useful to introduce a convenience variable and utilize make's expansion rules.
dir_guard=#mkdir -p $(#D)
$(OUT_O_DIR)/%.o: %.cpp
$(dir_guard)
#$(CC) -c $< -o $#
$(OUT_O_DIR_DEBUG)/%.o: %.cpp
$(dir_guard)
#$(CC) -g -c $< -o $#
title: $(OBJS)
This would do it - assuming a Unix-like environment.
MKDIR_P = mkdir -p
.PHONY: directories
all: directories program
directories: ${OUT_DIR}
${OUT_DIR}:
${MKDIR_P} ${OUT_DIR}
This would have to be run in the top-level directory - or the definition of ${OUT_DIR} would have to be correct relative to where it is run. Of course, if you follow the edicts of Peter Miller's "Recursive Make Considered Harmful" paper, then you'll be running make in the top-level directory anyway.
I'm playing with this (RMCH) at the moment. It needed a bit of adaptation to the suite of software that I am using as a test ground. The suite has a dozen separate programs built with source spread across 15 directories, some of it shared. But with a bit of care, it can be done. OTOH, it might not be appropriate for a newbie.
As noted in the comments, listing the 'mkdir' command as the action for 'directories' is wrong. As also noted in the comments, there are other ways to fix the 'do not know how to make output/debug' error that results. One is to remove the dependency on the the 'directories' line. This works because 'mkdir -p' does not generate errors if all the directories it is asked to create already exist. The other is the mechanism shown, which will only attempt to create the directory if it does not exist. The 'as amended' version is what I had in mind last night - but both techniques work (and both have problems if output/debug exists but is a file rather than a directory).
Or, KISS.
DIRS=build build/bins
...
$(shell mkdir -p $(DIRS))
This will create all the directories after the Makefile is parsed.
make in, and off itself, handles directory targets just the same as file targets. So, it's easy to write rules like this:
outDir/someTarget: Makefile outDir
touch outDir/someTarget
outDir:
mkdir -p outDir
The only problem with that is, that the directories timestamp depends on what is done to the files inside. For the rules above, this leads to the following result:
$ make
mkdir -p outDir
touch outDir/someTarget
$ make
touch outDir/someTarget
$ make
touch outDir/someTarget
$ make
touch outDir/someTarget
This is most definitely not what you want. Whenever you touch the file, you also touch the directory. And since the file depends on the directory, the file consequently appears to be out of date, forcing it to be rebuilt.
However, you can easily break this loop by telling make to ignore the timestamp of the directory. This is done by declaring the directory as an order-only prerequsite:
# The pipe symbol tells make that the following prerequisites are order-only
# |
# v
outDir/someTarget: Makefile | outDir
touch outDir/someTarget
outDir:
mkdir -p outDir
This correctly yields:
$ make
mkdir -p outDir
touch outDir/someTarget
$ make
make: 'outDir/someTarget' is up to date.
TL;DR:
Write a rule to create the directory:
$(OUT_DIR):
mkdir -p $(OUT_DIR)
And have the targets for the stuff inside depend on the directory order-only:
$(OUT_DIR)/someTarget: ... | $(OUT_DIR)
All solutions including the accepted one have some issues as stated in their respective comments. The accepted answer by #jonathan-leffler is already quite good but does not take into effect that prerequisites are not necessarily to be built in order (during make -j for example). However simply moving the directories prerequisite from all to program provokes rebuilds on every run AFAICT.
The following solution does not have that problem and AFAICS works as intended.
MKDIR_P := mkdir -p
OUT_DIR := build
.PHONY: directories all clean
all: $(OUT_DIR)/program
directories: $(OUT_DIR)
$(OUT_DIR):
${MKDIR_P} $(OUT_DIR)
$(OUT_DIR)/program: | directories
touch $(OUT_DIR)/program
clean:
rm -rf $(OUT_DIR)
I've just come up with a fairly reasonable solution that lets you define the files to build and have directories be automatically created. First, define a variable ALL_TARGET_FILES that holds the file name of every file that your makefile will be build. Then use the following code:
define depend_on_dir
$(1): | $(dir $(1))
ifndef $(dir $(1))_DIRECTORY_RULE_IS_DEFINED
$(dir $(1)):
mkdir -p $$#
$(dir $(1))_DIRECTORY_RULE_IS_DEFINED := 1
endif
endef
$(foreach file,$(ALL_TARGET_FILES),$(eval $(call depend_on_dir,$(file))))
Here's how it works. I define a function depend_on_dir which takes a file name and generates a rule that makes the file depend on the directory that contains it and then defines a rule to create that directory if necessary. Then I use foreach to call this function on each file name and eval the result.
Note that you'll need a version of GNU make that supports eval, which I think is versions 3.81 and higher.
given that you're a newbie, I'd say don't try to do this yet. it's definitely possible, but will needlessly complicate your Makefile. stick to the simple ways until you're more comfortable with make.
that said, one way to build in a directory different from the source directory is VPATH; i prefer pattern rules
OS independence is critical for me, so mkdir -p is not an option. I created this series of functions that use eval to create directory targets with the prerequisite on the parent directory. This has the benefit that make -j 2 will work without issue since the dependencies are correctly determined.
# convenience function for getting parent directory, will eventually return ./
# $(call get_parent_dir,somewhere/on/earth/) -> somewhere/on/
get_parent_dir=$(dir $(patsubst %/,%,$1))
# function to create directory targets.
# All directories have order-only-prerequisites on their parent directories
# https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Prerequisite-Types.html#Prerequisite-Types
TARGET_DIRS:=
define make_dirs_recursively
TARGET_DIRS+=$1
$1: | $(if $(subst ./,,$(call get_parent_dir,$1)),$(call get_parent_dir,$1))
mkdir $1
endef
# function to recursively get all directories
# $(call get_all_dirs,things/and/places/) -> things/ things/and/ things/and/places/
# $(call get_all_dirs,things/and/places) -> things/ things/and/
get_all_dirs=$(if $(subst ./,,$(dir $1)),$(call get_all_dirs,$(call get_parent_dir,$1)) $1)
# function to turn all targets into directories
# $(call get_all_target_dirs,obj/a.o obj/three/b.o) -> obj/ obj/three/
get_all_target_dirs=$(sort $(foreach target,$1,$(call get_all_dirs,$(dir $(target)))))
# create target dirs
create_dirs=$(foreach dirname,$(call get_all_target_dirs,$1),$(eval $(call make_dirs_recursively,$(dirname))))
TARGETS := w/h/a/t/e/v/e/r/things.dat w/h/a/t/things.dat
all: $(TARGETS)
# this must be placed after your .DEFAULT_GOAL, or you can manually state what it is
# https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Special-Variables.html
$(call create_dirs,$(TARGETS))
# $(TARGET_DIRS) needs to be an order-only-prerequisite
w/h/a/t/e/v/e/r/things.dat: w/h/a/t/things.dat | $(TARGET_DIRS)
echo whatever happens > $#
w/h/a/t/things.dat: | $(TARGET_DIRS)
echo whatever happens > $#
For example, running the above will create:
$ make
mkdir w/
mkdir w/h/
mkdir w/h/a/
mkdir w/h/a/t/
mkdir w/h/a/t/e/
mkdir w/h/a/t/e/v/
mkdir w/h/a/t/e/v/e/
mkdir w/h/a/t/e/v/e/r/
echo whatever happens > w/h/a/t/things.dat
echo whatever happens > w/h/a/t/e/v/e/r/things.dat
See https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/managing-projects-with/0596006101/ch12.html
REQUIRED_DIRS = ...
_MKDIRS := $(shell for d in $(REQUIRED_DIRS); \
do \
[[ -d $$d ]] || mkdir -p $$d; \
done)
$(objects) : $(sources)
As I use Ubuntu, I also needed add this at the top of my Makefile:
SHELL := /bin/bash # Use bash syntax
I use the makefiles in windows environment and my simple solution is as follows,
Create a target makedir and add it as a prerequisites to where ever it is required.
# Default goal
all: gccversion makedir build finalize list sizeafter completed
The makedir target is (applicable only in windows environment)
makedir:
#IF NOT EXIST $(subst /,\,$(BUILD_DIR)) mkdir $(subst /,\,$(BUILD_DIR)) 2> NULL
#IF NOT EXIST $(subst /,\,$(OUTPUT_DIR)) mkdir $(subst /,\,$(OUTPUT_DIR)) 2> NULL
#IF NOT EXIST $(subst /,\,$(DEP_DIR)) mkdir $(subst /,\,$(DEP_DIR)) 2> NUL
#IF NOT EXIST $(subst /,\,$(OBJ_DIR)) mkdir $(subst /,\,$(OBJ_DIR)) 2> NUL
$(subst /,\,$(BUILD_DIR)) converts the directory separator / to \ and
mkdir $(subst /,\,$(BUILD_DIR)) 2> NUL redirects the error if any.
src_dir := src
obj_dir := obj
build_dir := build
dirs := $(src_dir) $(obj_dir) $(build_dir) # new variable
all: $(dirs) $(other_dependencies) # added dependency (*before* any others)
$(dirs): # rule which makes missing directories
mkdir $#
Won't clutter your terminal with "cannot create directory" error messages. If the directories exist, they don't need to be built.
Works like any other dependency, only requires one rule and one variable.