evaluation of a command in variable for prerequisite of makefile rule - makefile

I'm writing a Makefile and I encounter some problems. I have a command which returns a string on stdout and I want to store this string in a variable. This program returns the list of dependencies of a file and I want to inject this list into the prerequisite line.
For now, I have this:
FILE= $(eval cut -d '.' -f1 $#)
FILEDEP= ./listfiledepend $(FILE).bar
IMAGEDEP= ./listimgdepend $(FILE).bar
%.foo: %.bar $(eval $(FILEDEP)
Some code to do
%.pdf: %.foo $(eval $(IMAGEDEP))
Some code to do
But it doesn't work and I don't know why.
I don't know how to do that

Related

Use of eval in a target recipe

In a Makefile I'm writing I had an interest in cleaning up some of the CC prints and centralizing some of the build preparations (like creating directories in the build tree). I figured macros would be a good fit for this task. This is effectively what im trying to do, used all over various Makefiles:
define func
#mkdir -p $$(dir $(1))
#printf "%-5s $(2)\n" $(3)
endef
test:
#echo Run
$(eval $(call func,a,b,c))
My thought was that after first expansion I'd get something like (less any tabs maybe, I'm not exactly sure how the expansion works within eval):
test:
#echo Run
$(eval #mkdir -p $(dir a)\n#printf "%-5s b\n" c
and of course finally the commands would be executed. However, what I get is this:
# make
Makefile:7: *** recipe commences before first target. Stop.
I changed eval to info and got this:
#mkdir -p $(dir a)
#printf "%-5s b\n" c
Run
So I thought maybe my explicit tabs in the macro definition were causing trouble, so I removed them and tried again:
# make
Makefile:7: *** missing separator. Stop.
So it still does not quite work. If it is indeed possible at all, it seems some function of indentions in the macro, or maybe I'm defining the macros incorrectly. I thought perhaps the two commands in the macro was causing trouble (since the complaint is regarding a separator), but reducing the macro to a single line did not help either.
You don't want eval here. Eval is used to evaluate makefile syntax. That is, the thing you're evaluation has to be a valid, complete makefile. You can see that what info prints is not a valid makefile. If you put that into a file and ran make -f <file>, you'd get a syntax error.
You are just trying to expand a variable for shell syntax. Just remove the eval.

Make $* check for string

I am trying to check if $* matches hello . But the following is not working
build: build-hello
build-%:
ifeq ($*, hello)
echo Hello
else
echo World
endif
The conditions in the ifeq's are processed at makefile read time -- when $* is still blank. There's a couple of workarounds to this: First, you could do a build-hello: rule, which would override the build-% rule for build-hello. If, on the other hand you wanted to minimize rules, you could use the $(if) function as so:
build-%:
#echo $(if $(filter $*,hello),Hello,World)
Or, you could just use shell logic to accomplish this as well.

Makefile secondary expansion: execution of escaped function?

Consider the following makefile:
.SECONDEXPANSION:
%.result: jobs/% $$(call get-job,$$<)
echo $^
define get-job
$(shell head -n 1 $(1))
$(shell tail -n +2 $(1))
endef
The idea is that each file under jobs/ contains a list of filenames, which should be appended to the prerequisite list.
However, if I want to create xyz.result from an existing file jobs/xyz, I get the following error message:
$ make -n xyz.result
head: cannot open 'xyz.result' for reading: No such file or directory
tail: cannot open 'xyz.result' for reading: No such file or directory
head: cannot open 'xyz.result' for reading: No such file or directory
tail: cannot open 'xyz.result' for reading: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target 'xyz.result'. Stop.
I am aware that $$< isn't set to what I want, as it reflects the prerequisite list of any previous rule.
What I don't understand is the following:
In my understanding, $$< should evaluate to the empty string (as shown in the example in the official doc, under the second sub-heading). However, it seems to be expanded to the value of the target here (xyz.result). Why is that?
It seems that the get-job function is called twice (head and tail both bark twice). I understand that the prerequisite list is expanded twice. But in the first run, the call is still escaped, so this isn't what I expect.
(Maybe the whole approach is flawed, and I shouldn't be (ab)using Makefile for this kind of task in the first place.)
I don't know why $$< expands that way.
You can make your configuration work by using $$* instead, though:
%.result: jobs/% $$(strip $$(call get-job,jobs/$$*))
echo $^
You need to add the strip call so that the newlines embedded in the results of the call will be turned into spaces.

Makefile extract part of filepath as compiler flag

as i am currently working on my makefile i encountered another problem. I am using this rule as part of my building process which transforms .mid files into .s files.
$(MIDAS): $(BLDPATH)/%.s: %.mid
$(shell mkdir -p $(dir $#))
#test $($< | sed "*")
$(MID2AGB) $(MIDFLAGS) -G$($< | sed ".*mus/vcg([0-9]{3})/.*\.mid") $< $#
All .mid input files follow the same format: .mus/vcg[0-9]{3}/..mid, meaning they are stored in different directories following the naming convention vcgXXX where X can be any digit from 0-9. (Maybe my regex is even wrong for this).
When i am calling $(MID2AGB) i want to use a compiler flag -GXXX. However the XXX of this flag has to match the XXX from the input file path.
My makefile code does not work. Any idea how to fix this problem?
There is a crude but effective way to do this using Make's string manipulation tools:
# suppose the source is .mus/vcg456/Z.mid
$(MIDAS): $(BLDPATH)/%.s: %.mid
#echo $* # this gives .mus/vcg456/Z
#echo $(subst /, ,$*) # this gives .mus vcg456 Z
#echo $(word 2,$(subst /, ,$*) # this gives vcg456
#echo $(subst vcg,,$(word 2,$(subst /, ,$*)) # this gives 456

Insert a new-line in a Makefile $(foreach ) loop

I'm compiling a large list of files in a Makefile.
my.list : ${deps}
rm -f $#
$(foreach F,$^,echo "${F}" >> $#;)
but ${deps} can be large and the generated command-line could be too large for one SHELL call. Is it possible to replace ';' by a newline '\n' ?
As already mentioned in Jonathan Wakely's answer, the straightforward answer is
define newline
endef
Interestingly enough, for all chars except newline there is an easier way to get non-printable characters into variables with some help from the shell, e.g.:
tab := $(shell printf '\011')
It won't work here, though, because the builtin shell function replaces all newlines by spaces.
The version above is still a bit fragile though, in particular when combining with automake which will silently remove the second consecutive newline from the input file, turning newline into an empty variable. To force it to keep the newline, we can extend the snippet:
blank :=
define newline
$(blank)
endef
Finally, to actually get a separate shell command for each dependency, you need to run the generated string through eval:
define generate-rule =
my.list : $(1)
rm -f $$#
$(foreach F,$$^,$(newline)$(tab)echo "${F}" >> $#)
endef
$(eval $(call generate-rule,$(deps)))
You can define a variable that expands to a newline like so:
define NEWLINE
endef
Now you can use $(NEWLINE) to expand to a newline.
This won't change anything though, the foreach will still generate a single command with embedded newlines between the statements, rather than a single command with ; between the statements.
Possibly the most straight-forward answer is to use:
#printf "\n"
You can also use this, as I commonly do, to show a description when each new make target executes. An example target:
.PHONY: clean-version
clean-version: ## Reset version back to committed version number
#printf "\n## Reset version to last committed version number ##\n\n"; \
$(GIT) checkout $(VERSION_FILE);
Replacing ';' by a carriage-return will produce a string of the same size, subject to the same problem.
"foreach" is simply a string expansion. If you want to execute a separate command for each item, you can use a for loop.
my.list : ${deps}
rm -f $#
(for F in $^; do echo $$F >> $# ; done)
Edit -- after some revisions, it looks like the only problem with my original was not due to the whitespaces, but with MAKE_O. I've fixed it in my version, but I'll mostly be removing them below.
By the way the original post was written, I'm not sure if my solution will be relevant. However, I found myself in the middle of a define already inside a foreach, and couldn't figure out how to insert a newline using any of the other answers as given.
Solution:
define BR
$(1)
endef
define MAKE_O
$(1): $(wildcard $(1:obj/%.o=src/%.cpp)); \
$(CXX) ... -c $$< \$(call BR)-o $1 ... \
\$(call BR)&& touch $$#
endef
$(foreach N,main.o,$(eval $(call MAKE_O,$(N))))
Desired output (compilation is truncated from auto-dependency generation, hence the touch):
> make obj/main.o
g++ ... -c src/main.cpp \
-o obj/main.o ... \
&& touch obj/main.o
I changed BR to perform the indentation but leave the end of the line up to you:
define BR
$(1)
$(1:%= ) #<remove this comment
endef
define MAKE_O
$(1): $(wildcard $(1:obj/%.o=src/%.cpp)); \
$(CXX) ... -c $$< $(call BR,\)-o $1 ... \
$(call BR,\)&& touch $$#
endef
$(foreach N,main.o,$(eval $(call MAKE_O,$(N))))
The markup won't help to show this, but line 2 of BR is $(1:%=_space_)_tab_ (the comment itself is not allowed.) Result:
> make -n obj/main.o
g++ obj/main.o -c \
-o obj/main.o && \
echo statement on new line
I used $(call BR,\) so that the newline was not parsed as an escape of the new line, and $(1:%=space)tab so that the tab is forced (many similar rules have been defined, like SPACE:=$(SPACE) $(SPACE) without a prior value.) The variable left of the whitespace must evaluate to something. To be clear, removing the whitespace before and after the call: ...lastword$(call BR,\)firstword... yields ...lastword\n\tfirstword..., or written out,
[^]...lastword \[$]
[^]$(call BR,\)firstword...[$]
...yields...
[^]...lastword \[$]
[^] firstword...[$]
to achieve the same (using ^,$ to denote the beginning and end of the line. Someone else will probably know how to format/annotate this better.)
My syntax highlighter is decidedly unimpressed with the 'escaped' parentheses and trailing whitespace, but the result is decent.

Resources