Makefile that rebuilds all if compiled with dif flags - makefile

Question

So I am having a little bit of a tough time trying to figure out how to make my Makefile so that when I do make and it compiles a release version then later on do a make debug it compiles a debug version with the new -DDEBUG and -g set on gcc if the files have not been updated.
For example:
main.cpp is edited
run make
compiles main.cpp
run make debug
main.cpp is not recompiled because there were no changes even though the flags for compilation differ
Note I don't want to have to do a clean each time either because I dont want to have to recompile files if I do 2 makes in a row so setting clean as a dependency is not going to be a valid answer here

Answer 1

You may like to compile object files into a different directory depending on the build mode, e.g.:
# default mode, override with `make BUILD=release`
BUILD := debug
obj_dir := ${BUILD}
CFLAGS.debug := -g -O0
CFLAGS.release := -g -O3 -march=native -DNDEBUG
all : ${obj_dir}/test
# Example executable
${obj_dir}/test : ${obj_dir}/test.o
test.c :
echo "int main() { return 0; }" > $#
# Generic rules
${obj_dir} :
mkdir $#
${obj_dir}/%.o : %.c Makefile | ${obj_dir} # Also recompile when Makefile changes.
${CC} -c -o $# ${CPPFLAGS} ${CFLAGS} ${CFLAGS.${BUILD}} -MD -MP $<
${obj_dir}/% : Makefile | ${obj_dir} # Also re-link when Makefile changes.
${CC} -o $# ${LDFLAGS} $(filter-out Makefile,$^) ${LDLIBS}
clean :
rm -rf ${obj_dir}
-include $(wildcard ${obj_dir}/*.d)
${obj_dir}/*.d : ;
.PHONY: all clean
(Bonus feature: automatic dependency generation).
Usage:
[max#localhost:~/tmp] $ make
mkdir debug
echo "int main() { return 0; }" > test.c
cc -c -o debug/test.o -g -O0 -MD -MP test.c
cc -o debug/test debug/test.o
[max#localhost:~/tmp] $ make
make: Nothing to be done for 'all'.
[max#localhost:~/tmp] $ make BUILD=release
mkdir release
cc -c -o release/test.o -g -O3 -march=native -DNDEBUG -MD -MP test.c
cc -o release/test release/test.o
[max#localhost:~/tmp] $ make BUILD=release
make: Nothing to be done for 'all'.

Answer 2

First of all, you should not run make debug - that would mean, you want to build a different target (debug). But you don't, you want to build the same target, just with different options. That's what you do, you run a different option, a variable value
>make DEBUG=Y
When you run
>make
you also pass that variable really, just with the empty string as value.
Now, in order for this to work as you want in the Makefile, you would want to make it as if DEBUG was a prerequisite file, with recipes like this:
foobar.o: foobar.c DEBUG
gcc $(if $(DEBUG), -DDEBUG -g) -c $< -o $#
Of course, normally this won't work, because DEBUG is a variable, not a file. So you need a hack, that I call "dependable variables". It is basically a way to declare a variable to behave like a file. I describe this technique in one of my other answers:
How do I add a debug option to Makefile

Answer 3

I once did something like this, it looked like that (boiled down to the minimum):
EXE := a.out
SRC := $(wildcard *.c)
ifneq ($(MAKECMDGOALS),debug)
OBJ := $(SRC:.c=.o)
else
OBJ := $(SRC:.c=-d.o)
endif
.PHONY: all debug
all: $(EXE)
debug: CFLAGS += -g -DDEBUG
debug: $(EXE)
$(EXE): $(OBJ)
$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $^ $(LDLIBS) -o $#
%.o %-d.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) -o $# -c $<
The trick is to use two separate list of object files, and select one depending of the target.