What do $< and $# mean in makefiles? - makefile

I have a.csv,b.csv, ... in a my docs/csv directory, I need convert each of this file to a json file.
I follow this question to write a Makefile like this.
SRCS = $(wildcard docs/csv/*.csv)
DESTS = $(patsubst docs/csv/%.csv, scripts/data/%.lua, $(SRCS))
all: $(DESTS)
$(DESTS): $(SRCS)
echo $#
echo $<
but every time I ran make all, the echo $# show every file as expected, but echo $< always show the single file, called items.csv in my csv folder.

The trouble is that in this rule:
$(DESTS): $(SRCS)
...
every lua file depends on all csv files, which is not what I think you intend. And since $< expands to the first prerequisite, you get the same one (items.csv) for every target.
Try this:
all: $(DESTS)
scripts/data/%.lua: docs/csv/%.csv
echo $#
echo $<

$<
is the name of the FIRST dependency. Use $^ for all the dependencies
$#
is the name of the current target

The GNU make man page on Automatic Variables is extremely useful. Here's what it says:
$#
The file name of the target of the rule. If the target is an archive member, then ‘$#’ is the name of the archive file. In a
pattern rule that has multiple targets (see Introduction to Pattern
Rules), ‘$#’ is the name of whichever target caused the rule's recipe
to be run.
$<
The name of the first prerequisite. If the target got its recipe from an implicit rule, this will be the first prerequisite added by
the implicit rule (see Implicit Rules).
Incidentally, you probably want to write your make rule as a pattern rule instead:
%.lua : %.csv
<rules for making a lua from a csv>

Related

Makefile: Pattern rule that can ignore directories

I am trying to have a Makefile rule that can generate an object file from a source file in a directory that is specified explicitly.
exe: foo.o bar.o
foo.o: path/to/foo.c
%.o: %.c
echo Making $# from $<
This example will find it needs to make "exe", then search to make "foo.o". The "foo.o" search will try pattern rules with stem "foo" and fail to use the rule because "foo.c" doesn't exist. I want to find a way to have it see that "foo.o" can be compiled from "path/to/foo.c" using the pattern rule.
In my case it doesn't make sense for me to have the rule be "%.o: path/to/%.c" because the path should be specified for each target that needs the source to be located in another directory.
The pattern rule works for "bar.o" being made from "bar.c" within the same directory and I want to keep that working.
The solution I am going with for now is:
define c-to-o-command
echo Making $# from $<
endef
exe: foo.o bar.o
foo.o: path/to/foo.c
$(c-to-o-command)
%.o: %.c
$(c-to-o-command)
This has a drawback that the command for the pattern rule is not visible in the Makefile at the same place. It also will need to be expanded for other pattern rules that may need to have this "out of path" dependency.

Make removes files as intermediate

When trying to organize the compilation output into a build directory, make keeps removing object files. The Makefile is:
MPI_INSTALLATION=/home/gkaf/Software/MPI
IDIR=$(MPI_INSTALLATION)/include
LDIR=$(MPI_INSTALLATION)/lib
CC=gcc
CFLAGS=-I$(IDIR)
LDFLAGS=-L$(LDIR) -Wl,-rpath=$(LDIR)
BUILD_DIR=build
OBJ_DIR=$(BUILD_DIR)/obj
BIN_DIR=$(BUILD_DIR)/bin
SRC_DIR=src
LIBS=-lmpi
.PHONY: all
all: test-mpi
.PHONY: test-mpi
test-mpi: prepare $(BIN_DIR)/test-mpi
$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: $(SRC_DIR)/%.c
$(CC) -c -o $# $< $(CFLAGS)
$(BIN_DIR)/%: $(OBJ_DIR)/%.o
$(CC) -o $# $^ $(LDFLAGS) $(LIBS)
prepare: $(BUILD_DIR) $(OBJ_DIR) $(BIN_DIR)
$(BUILD_DIR):
mkdir -p $(BUILD_DIR)
$(OBJ_DIR):
mkdir -p $(OBJ_DIR)
$(BIN_DIR):
mkdir -p $(BIN_DIR)
.PHONY: clean
clean:
rm -rf $(BUILD_DIR)
The object file build/obj/test-mpi.o generated during the compilation is deleted after the executable build/bin/test-mpi is created.
I believe that make treats build/obj/test-mpi.o as an intermediate file. However, I was expecting that build/obj/test-mpi.o would not be treated as an intermediate file since it appears explicitly in the target $(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: $(SRC_DIR)/%.c and gnu make documentation states that "ordinarily, a file cannot be intermediate if it is mentioned in the makefile as a target or prerequisite".
This behavior has been reported in a similar issue, but I believe that in both cases the files should not be treated as intermediate since they appear in a target. Am I missing something?
I believe that make treats build/obj/test-mpi.o as an intermediate file.
Yes, that looks right.
However, I was expecting that build/obj/test-mpi.o would not be treated as an intermediate file since it appears explicitly in the target $(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: $(SRC_DIR)/%.c [...]
Given that $(OBJ_DIR) expands to build/obj, the pattern $(OBJ_DIR)/%.o matches build/obj/test-mpi.o. That's the opposite of build/obj/test-mpi.o appearing explicitly.
Even so, you have read the GNU make documentation correctly: make would not consider build/obj/test-mpi.o to be an intermediate file if it was mentioned as a target or prerequisite of some other rule. But it isn't. If make builds that file at all, it is entirely make's idea, notwithstanding the fact that you set the stage for it to come to that decision. This is exactly what it means to be an intermediate file.
Am I missing something?
Apparently you are missing what it means for a file to be "mentioned in" a makefile, as the GNU docs put it. It means that the file's name appears literally in the makefile text, after macro expansion, as a target or prerequisite of a rule. Example:
$(BIN_DIR)/test-mpi: $(OBJ_DIR)/test-mpi.o
or
$(OBJ_DIR)/test-mpi.o: $(SRC_DIR)/test-mpi.c
Matching a target or prerequisite pattern of an implicit ("pattern") rule does not suffice. In fact, it is exactly files that are generated as intermediates in chains of implicit rules that make aims to remove. Implicit rules defined in the makefile are not distinguished from make's built-in implicit rules in this regard.
However, although files such as the one you asked about are definitely intermediate files as GNU make defines that term, make has an additional capability here that might serve your purposes. If you want to use a pattern to specify intermediate targets that you want to preserve, then you can do so by designating the pattern as a prerequisite of the special target .PRECIOUS, like so:
.PRECIOUS: $(OBJ_DIR)/%.o
Intermediate files matching such a pattern will be spared from the automatic deletion to which they otherwise they would be subject.

How can I make a pattern rule dependency optional in a Makefile?

I would like make to reference the timestamp of a dependency if and only if the file already exists. I have a pattern rule like this:
%.pdf: %.sil
sile $< -o $#
This works great in normal situations, but the .sil file makes an external reference to a lua file of the same name if it exists. How do I make make aware of this so it checks the timestamps and regenerates the PDF if the lua file is newer but ignores the dependency if the file doesn't exist at all?
This:
%.pdf: %.sil %.lua
sile $< -o $#
…only works for cases where the file exists and causes an error if it doesn't.
With a sufficiently new version of GNU make you can use:
.SECONDEXPANSION:
%.pdf: %.sil $$(wildcard $$*.lua)
sile $< -o $#
See the manual section for SECONDEXPANSION targets and the wildcard function.

GNU Makefile - Pattern rule with multiple targets with one dependency ignores all targets but the first

I want to make a language depend target. In Particular: I have one source-file and I want to create different Objects which where add to the corresponding language folder. That single source file will differ in the C-Flags, the compiler will get. As long as I used it in a static way, it works quite fine.
de/info.o en/info.o es/info.o : info.c
$(ECHO) (DEP) $< for $#
Now I thought, it would be great if it is a bit more dynamic, in case i'll add a new language depending file. So I used a wildcard as followed:
de/%.o en/%.o es/%.o : %.c
$(ECHO) (DEP) $< for $#
But now it just make the first target and ignores the rest. The Make-Debug prints the following thing:
Successfully remade target file `de/info.o'.
Considering target file `en/info.o'.
File `en/info.o' was considered already.
Just in case: No, the objects do not exist. So there is no target, but an existing dependencie, so make should execute the rules.
EDIT: Found a solution for that Problem.
define FOO
$(1)/%.o : %.c
$(ECHO) $$< for $(1)
endef
$(foreach lang,$(LANGUAGE_LIST), $(eval $(call FOO,$(lang))))
Inspired by: http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Eval-Function
Pattern rules work differently than implicit rules. While an implicit rule such as
a b c: d
command
is equivalent to the longer notation
a: d
command
b: d
command
c: d
command
this does NOT hold for pattern rules. Pattern rules with multiple targets are explicitly required to build all of their targets in a single invocation of command. Thus you would have to write
$ cat GNUmakefile
all: de/x.o en/x.o es/x.o
de/%.o: %.c
#echo $# from $<
en/%.o: %.c
#echo $# from $<
es/%.o: %.c
#echo $# from $<
$ gmake
de/x.o from x.c
en/x.o from x.c
es/x.o from x.c
The relevant documentation is found in 10.5.1 Introduction to Pattern Rules of the GNU make manual:
Pattern rules may have more than one target. Unlike normal rules, this does not act as many different rules with the same prerequisites and recipe. If a pattern rule has multiple targets, make knows that the rule’s recipe is responsible for making all of the targets. The recipe is executed only once to make all the targets. When searching for a pattern rule to match a target, the target patterns of a rule other than the one that matches the target in need of a rule are incidental: make worries only about giving a recipe and prerequisites to the file presently in question. However, when this file’s recipe is run, the other targets are marked as having been updated themselves.

Wildcard in implicit rule's prerequisites

BUILT_DIR = /tmp/obj
SRC = /source/dir
/tmp/obj/%/builtin.o : $(SRC)/%/*.c
gcc $^ -o $#
But you know :
In order for the pattern rule to apply, its target pattern must match the file name under consideration and all of its prerequisites (after pattern substitution) must name files that exist or can be made.
If i execute make /tmp/obj/hfa/builtin.o,make will complain :
make: *** No rule to make target/tmp/obj/hfa/builtin.o'. Stop.`
How can i modify the Makefile to satisfy my requirement?
You can use Secondary Expansion
BUILT_DIR = /tmp/obj
SRC = /source/dir
.SECONDEXPANSION:
/tmp/obj/%/builtin.o : $$(wildcard $(SRC)/%/*.c)
gcc $^ -o $#
The error you see indicates that there are no .c files which match the pattern $(SRC)/hfa/*.c since the % translates into hfa. So make cannot use the rule you've defined.
Make then starts to use the implicit rules for building and it would not match either.
Finally make gives up.
I just confirmed that the same Makefile and I get the same error only when there are no *.c files in the $(SRC)/hfa directory.
Otherwise, I see the gcc command getting executed.
And from your question, it is not quite clear what your requirement is.
The rule configuration that worked for me:
bar-%-foo:
#touch $#
.SECONDEXPANSION:
foo-%-bar: bar-$$*-foo
#echo "#: $#"
#echo "<: $<"
#touch $#
foo-bar: foo-biz-bar foo-baz-bar
.PHONY: foo-bar
And demo:
$:make foo-bar
#: foo-biz-bar
<: bar-biz-foo
#: foo-baz-bar
<: bar-baz-foo
rm bar-biz-foo bar-baz-foo
$:ls | grep foo
foo-baz-bar
foo-biz-bar

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