Makefile - Pattern Rule as a dependency - makefile

I've ha makefile with following entries. Will the first rule depend on the secon rule ? So that it builds all the .o files from second files ?
all:$(PROG)
$(PROG): *.o
$(LD) -o $(PROG) -c $< $(LFLAGS)
%.o : %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# -c $<
To be specific if i invoke 'make all' will it invoke the second rule if no *.o files were found ?
All other Variables have usual meaning .

No, that will not work. When you run your makefile for the first time, are there any .o files? No. So the expression *.o will expand to nothing.
Of course, your recipe for $(PROG) doesn't actually use any of the object files anyway, as written.
You can do something like this (although personally I prefer to simply list the files out by hand; it's not very common to create all new files so it's not much effort, and it's safer than just trying to grab every file in the directory):
SOURCES := $(wildcard *.c)
OBJECTS := $(SOURCES:%.c=%.o)
$(PROG): $(OBJECTS)

Related

Why is my Makefile rule not deleting .o files?

My Makefile works but I'm still getting the main.o file created when calling make.
I've been looking through Stack Overflow for topics like mine but I haven't been able to understand the reason.
Here's the Makefile's content:
EXEC=program
SOURCES=main.c
OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:.c=.o)
CC=gcc -pthread -lpthread
CFLAGS=-std=gnu99 -g
.PHONY: clean
default: $(EXEC)
main.o: main.c
clean:
-rm *.o $(objects) program
%.o: %.c
$(CC) -o $# -c $< $(CFLAGS)
$(EXEC): $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) -o $# $^
If you want your object files removed after the build step just append the rm -f *.o command to the $(EXEC) target.
Also, a few notes pointed out in the comments:
Makefile variable names are case-sensitive. Use either objects or OBJECTS, not both.
Instead of hard-coding program in your clean target, you should instead use $(EXEC). That way you won't have to change it every time you change your program's name.
You usually want .o files to be left after compiling so you don't have to recompile everything after a small change.
You can have Make delete your object files automatically -- and not rebuild them needlessly when the sources have not been changed -- by making them intermediate files by means of the .INTERMEDIATE special target. Just add this line:
.INTERMEDIATE: $(OBJECTS)

Makefile Syntax unclear

This is my first Makefile, and I am can't figure out some of the syntax used. The questions are marked below.
$(BUILD_DIR)/%.o: %.c $(BUILD_DIR)
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -Wa,-a,-ad,-alms=$(BUILD_DIR)/$(notdir $(<:.c=.lst)) $< -o $#
What is the usage of "$(BUILD_DIR)" in the dependency?
What is the meaning of "$(BUILD_DIR)/$(notdir $(<:.c=.lst)) $< -o $#" in the role?
As with most computer languages the syntax of make cannot be clear if you don't know it. If you are using GNU make the GNU make manual is your friend. In the following explanations I will assume that BUILD_DIR = build and that one of the source files is bar/foo.c.
$(BUILD_DIR) in the list of prerequisites (dependencies) tells make that the build directory (in which object files are supposed to go) must exist before the recipe is executed; logical. There must be another rule somewhere to create the directory if it does not exist yet. Something like:
$(BUILD_DIR):
mkdir -p $#
But unless you forgot to copy an important character, this dependency is terribly sub-optimal. As the last modification time of a directory changes each time its content changes (files or sub-directories added or removed), it will force the re-compilation of all source files every time the directory changes, which is not what you want. A better dependency would be order-only:
$(BUILD_DIR)/%.o: %.c | $(BUILD_DIR)
that tells make to consider only the existence of $(BUILD_DIR), not its last modification time, when deciding to re-build or not.
$(BUILD_DIR)/$(notdir $(<:.c=.lst)) $< -o $# is just a combination of make automatic variables and functions.
$< and $# expand as the first prerequisite (bar/foo.c) and the target (build/bar/foo.o) respectively.
$(<:.c=.lst) replaces .c by .lst in $<: bar/foo.lst.
$(notdir $(<:.c=.lst)) removes the directory part: foo.lst.
All in all, for a bar/foo.c source file, and with BUILD_DIR = build, the pattern rule would be equivalent to:
build/bar/foo.o: bar/foo.c | build
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -Wa,-a,-ad,-alms=build/foo.lst bar/foo.c -o build/bar/foo.o
Note that there are two different situations to consider:
All your source files are in the same directory as the Makefile (no bar/foo.c, just foo.c). Then you can simplify your recipe:
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -Wa,-a,-ad,-alms=$(BUILD_DIR)/$(<:.c=.lst) $< -o $#
because the $(notdir...) is useless.
Your source files can be in sub-directories (bar/foo.c). Then you need the $(notdir...) in your recipe. But be warned that if you have two source files with the same base name (bar/foo.c and baz/foo.c) you will have a name conflict for $(BUILD_DIR)/foo.lst and your Makefile will not work as expected. Moreover, the order-only prerequisite of the rule should be equivalent to build/bar (or build/baz), not just build. And there should be a rule to create it if needed. If it is your case I suggest to change your pattern rule for:
$(BUILD_DIR)/%.o: %.c
mkdir -p $(dir $#)
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -Wa,-a,-ad,-alms=$(BUILD_DIR)/$(notdir $(<:.c=.lst)) $< -o $#
There are other solutions (secondary expansion...) but there are a bit too complicated for this already too long answer.

Create object files in one folder from different source folders

I am creating a Makefile of a Keil based project. I have a working Makefile now, but I have manually written rules for all the source files, something like this:
out/abc.o: ../../../src/modules/abc.c
ARMCC -o $# $(FLAGS) $^
out/def.o: ../../../src/utilities/def.c
ARMCC -o $# $(FLAGS) $^
out/xyz.o: src/xyz.c
ARMCC -o $# $(FLAGS) $^
which has become kinda long. The object files need to be in one directory(/out), but the source files are in different levels and in various folders like utilities, modules etc. Is there a way to shorten my Makefile so that it scans these different levels of source files and creates the object files?
EDIT:
A follow-up question to the answer. My linker rule is something like this, along with the VPATH addition. I added one directory to VPATH and others are still explicitly compiled.
OBJECT_FILES=out/abc.o out/def.o out/xyz.o
out/binary.axf: $(OBJECT_FILES)
ARMLINK $(MANY_FLAGS) $^ -o $#
VPATH=../a/b/c/module
out/%.o : %.c
$(CC) $(C_FLAGS) $(INCLUDE_PATH) -o $# --depend out/%.d $<
I now get an error that there is no rule for abc.o. abc.c which is present in the directory specified in VPATH under module
*** No rule to make target `out/abc.o', needed by `out/binary.axf'. Stop.
You can use VPATH for this. It can search a list of directories for source files. Assuming you can come up with the list of directories:
VPATH = ../../../src src
CC = ARMCC
out/%.o : %.c
$(CC) -o $# $(CFLAGS) -c $<

Makefile: source files in a particular directory

What do I need to do if I want to compile several files (e.g. a.f90, b.f90, c.f90) in a given directory (say, MYDIR)?
My Makefile code is something like:
CC=gfortran
CFLAG=-g
HOME=MYDIR
SRC=$(HOME)/(a.f90,b.f90,c.f90)
OBJ=$(SRC:,=.o)
EXE=test.x
%.o: %.f90
$(CC) $(CFLAG) -c -o $# $<
$(EXE): $(OBJ)
$(CC) -o $# $^ $(CFLAG)
clean:
rm -f *.o
I think, the 4-th line is not correct. So what could be the replacement?
Another thought: Can I use a wildcard if I want to compile all .f90 file inside MYDIR?
There are lots of ways to do it. You can do something like:
SRC = $(addprefix $(HOME)/,a.f90 b.f90 c.f90)
Also your assignment of OBJ is wrong; there's no comma needed after the colon.
Yes you can use wildcard if you want.

Passing target name to a dependency in makefile

If I have the following rule in a makefile:
$(OBJ)/%.o: $(SRC)/%.c
$(CC) -c -o $# $< $(CFLAGS)
Every file matching the prefix ./obj/ and sufix .o will have its stem passed to %, so I can provide some dependencies based on its name.
But, suppose I have this kind of rule, which I specify one by one the targets I want:
OBJECTS=abc.o bca.o cba.o
$(OBJECTS): $(SRC)/%.c
$(CC) -c -o $# $< $(CFLAGS)
How do I make the % stem actually work for the current target name make is executing? Just using % doesn't work, neither $#.
Note that I'm trying to write the actual target name to its own dependency. For example, when make is executing the rule for abc.o, it would include $(SRC)/abc.c and just it (something like $(patsubst %.o, $(SRC)/%.c, MAGIC_TARGET_NAME_VARIABLE)).
You can just replace this rule:
$(OBJECTS): $(SRC)/%.c
with:
$(OBJECTS) : %.o : $(SRC)/%.c
You will need to add the $(OBJ) to the -o part of the recipe if you still want them built there:
$(OBJECTS) : %.o : $(SRC)/%.c
$(CC) -c -o $(OBJ)/$# $< $(CFLAGS)
I’m not completely clear on what you’re asking, but I think this accomplishes what you’re trying to do:
OBJECTS=abc.o bca.o cba.o
.PHONY: all
all: $(OBJECTS:%=obj/%)
$(OBJ)/%.o: $(SRC)/%.c
echo $(CC) -c -o $# $< $(CFLAGS)
All .o files are built; each .o file is built using only the .c file corresponding to it; and if you want to refer to the list of all object files or source files in the command for compiling a .o file, then you can reference ${OBJECTS} directly.
If this isn’t what you’re trying to do, you’ll be able to get a better answer by listing the input files you have, the output files you want to make, the input dependencies of each output file, and what compilation command you want to execute for each output file.

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