Makefile with multiple directories and dependencies - makefile

Question

``I am pretty new to Makefile and I am trying to build a project.
This is the structure of my project:
-Project
|-generic
| |-include
| |-src
|-specific
| |-include
| |-src
|-Makefile
|-bin
Here generic contains mainly interface classes (virtual), and files in specific may depends on those.
I want to compile all sources and put their corresponding .o files in bin and also create a static library in bin.
EDIT:
CC=k1-g++
CPPFLAGS=-c -I$(GENERIC_INCLUDE_DIR) -I$(SPECIFIC_INCLUDE_DIR) -Os -std=gnu++11 -mos=nodeos
CXXFLAGS=-c -I$(GENERIC_INCLUDE_DIR) -I$(SPECIFIC_INCLUDE_DIR) -Os -std=gnu++11 -mos=nodeos
LFLAGS=-pthread -lnodeos
GENERIC_INCLUDE_DIR=generic/include
SPECIFIC_INCLUDE_DIR=specific/include
GENERIC_SRC_DIR=generic/src
SPECIFIC_SRC_DIR=specific/src
LIB = libengine.a
BIN_DIR=bin
vpath %.cpp $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR) $(SPECIFIC_SRC_DIR)
SOURCES := $(wildcard $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR)/*.cpp $(SPECIFIC_SRC_DIR)/*.cpp)
#SOURCES := $(wildcard $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR)/*.cpp $(SPECIFIC_SRC_DIR)/*.cpp)
SOURCES := $(notdir $(SOURCES))
OBJECTS := $(patsubst %.cpp,$(BIN_DIR)/%.cpp.o,$(SOURCES))
all: $(OBJECTS) $(LIB)
$(LIB): $(OBJECTS)
ar -cvq $(BIN_DIR)/$# $^
#$(BIN_DIR)/%.cpp.o: $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR)/%.cpp
# $(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $< $(LFLAGS) -o $#
$(BIN_DIR)/%.cpp.o: %.cpp
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $< $(LFLAGS) -o $#
.PHONY: clean
clean:
rm -f $(BIN_DIR)/*
Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

Suppose you have generic/src/foo.cpp and specific.src/bar.cpp.
This:
$(BIN_DIR)/%.o: %.cpp
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $*.cpp -o $#
is pretty close to what you need (I've replaced $(BIN_DIR)/$*.o with the automatic variable $#, which expands to the name of the target); the only problem is that it doesn't work. This rule tells Make it can build obj/foo.o from foo.cpp, but there is no foo.cpp. There's a generic/src/foo.cpp, but Make doesn't know that that's what you meant. We could write a rule like this:
$(BIN_DIR)/%.o: $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR)/%.cpp
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $*.cpp -o $#
But a tidier way is to use the vpath directive:
vpath %.cpp $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR) $(SPECIFIC_SRC_DIR)
$(BIN_DIR)/%.o: %.cpp
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $*.cpp -o $#
This will do nicely for building any one object file, but you say you want to compile "all sources". That isn't always a good idea, but if that's what you want it isn't hard, we use wildcard to obtain a list of all the sources, then convert that into a list of corresponding object files, then build them all:
SOURCES := $(wildcard $(GENERIC_SRC_DIR)/*.cpp $(SPECIFIC_SRC_DIR)/*.cpp)
SOURCES := $(notdir $(SOURCES))
OBJECTS := $(patsubst %.cpp,%.o, $(SOURCES))
# We could have done that all in one line, but this way is easier to read.
all: $(OBJECTS)
Now for the library:
vpath %.o $(BIN_DIR)
$(BIN_DIR)/$(LIB): $(OBJECTS)
ar -cvq $# $^
Further refinements are possible, but that should keep busy for a while.