I am looking at C makefile, and I have a question.
I know that 'make a' will make the target a, which is supposed to be defined in the makefile.
I want to know whether the target name itself can be supplied as an argument to make.
i.e. this is what I want to do:
$(target_name) is the name supplied to command 'make'. For example, 'make foo'.
and in the makefile,
$(target_name) = dependencies
command
I am not sure whether this is possible... could not find anything in the make manual too.
If anyone can help me with this, it'll be awesome.
Thanks,
Everything you are asking about is what make does by default - there is no need to write any special code in the makefile to do this. You seem rather confused about make (it is not particularly C related, for example). The best guide to it is the GNU Make Manual, which is not only a manual but a pretty good tutorial.
I'm kind of new to Makefiles but it seems you don't pass values in Makefile like that. If the following is your Makefile
# Makefile
TARGET?=something
$(TARGET):
echo $(TARGET)
You can pass parameters in by calling make like this in the terminal
$ TARGET='ABCDEF' make
Related
I want to have a generic Makefile that takes any target name and for that target name, checks to see if certain sources exist and then executes some commands. So for example I want to be able to enter:
make mytarget
then make should check to see if mytarget.src1 and mytarget.src2 exist, and if so execute some commands.
I have the following makefile:
%:
$(MYCOMMANDS) $*.scr1 $*.scr2
the only problem with this is that it doesn't check to see if $.scr1 and $.scr2 exist before running $(MYCOMMANDS). This is understandable because I haven't specified any dependencies. However when I try:
%: $*.src1 $*.src2
$(MYCOMMANDS) $*.scr1 $*.scr2
it now doesn't ever run $(MYCOMMAND) and says no rule to make the specified target.
Can someone please explain why in my second code make cannot find the target? Also, how can I achieve the behavior that I want?
The correct way to write a pattern rule is to use the pattern (%) in both the target and the prerequisites:
%: %.src1 %.src2
$(MYCOMMANDS) $^
See Pattern Rules in the GNU make manual. Also see Automatic Variables. By the way, the third paragraph in the second link will explain why your second attempt, using $* in the prerequisites, cannot work.
I was able to get the behavior I want using the MAKECMDGOALS variable. So:
$(MAKECMDGOALS): $(MAKECMDGOALS).src1 $(MAKECMDGOALS).src2
$(MYCOMMANDS) $(MAKECMDGOALS).scr1 $(MAKECMDGOALS).scr2
does what I am looking for. It checks to make sure .src1 and .src2 exist. If they don't make will report an error and if they do it will run $(MYCOMMANDS).
I have a Variable in make that is dependant on a file that must be built before the variable can be set, is there a way to get this to work?
parsable_file: dependancies
commands to make parsable_file
targets=$(shell parse_cmd parsable_file)
$(targets): parsable_file
command to make targets
.phony: all
all:$(targets)
If I run $ make parsable_file && make all this will work (I get an error that parse_cmd cant find parsable_file but it works), but just make all will not work. Is there a Make idiom for this?
Set the variable in a file that you include in the main makefile and include a rule in the main makefile for how to build it (the one you already have should be fine).
I believe that will do what you want.
See Including Other Makefiles and How Makefiles Are Remade (which is linked from the first section) for more details on this concept.
Also, unless parseable_file has a usage independent from that parse_cmd call, it should be possible to do the creation and the parsing at the same time and just have the resulting makefile contain the correct value for $(targets) in one step.
Although both names will do the job, what is the correct name for makefiles?
GNU `make' homepage uses Makefile, and I guess it is the good way to name it. Any reasons for typing the front M in upper case ?
What Name to Give Your Makefile chapter of GNU Make manual clarifies it:
By default, when make looks for the makefile, it tries the following names, in order: GNUmakefile, makefile and Makefile. Normally you should call your makefile either makefile or Makefile. (We recommend Makefile because it appears prominently near the beginning of a directory listing, right near other important files such as README.) The first name checked, GNUmakefile, is not recommended for most makefiles. You should use this name if you have a makefile that is specific to GNU make, and will not be understood by other versions of make. Other make programs look for makefile and Makefile, but not GNUmakefile.
I think that Makefile is displayed at the almost top of the list rather than makefile when using the ls command.
it is not only the reason that it appears prominently near the beginning of a directory listing, but also that it would cause a compile error when you using “makefile” to replace “Makefile”。 you could try to test in the helloworld case of Linux device driver..
I understand that # suppresses printing of a command in a Makefile...
http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Echoing
... and I understand that $# is the target name...
http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Automatic-Variables
... but I can't find any information on what a line like this might mean:
variable=#value#
I'm not trying to fix anything here, just trying to better understand Makefiles.
Update: The "Makefile Subsitutions" section of the GNU autoconf manual explains that it's a value that is substituted by autoconf.
Typically you find this in Makefile.in files, which are processed by configure (which are in turn generated by autoconf) scripts.
In that case #X# will be replaced by the value of a shell variable $X, if configure is told so. If it's not, no occurrence in the input file will be touched by configure, hence leaving the replaceable string as it is. If you ask me these instances indicate slips in the build system.
Initially, when I made the question I attributed the problem to wildcards, a problem, but a bigger problem apparently looming. If I understand the error right, GNU make has no make-subprocessing so have to switch to some derivative of Boor's make. I may be understanding it wrong but I try to make this problem easier to understand.
Makefile: makefile trying to execute parts of itself many times, the thing I mean by subprocessing
all:
make clean
make $$(.??*)
#I want to replace below-like-things with a wildcard above
# make .lambda
# make .lambda_t
#
# KEY: It should run NEW make-processes! how?
clean:
-rm .??*
.lambda:
#do something
.lambda_t:
You are doing it the wrong way.
You don't need to call make like that. Just declares additional targets, and use target dependancies.
Note that you can use the Make 'foreach dir' function to get files matching a pattern:
_FILES_HIDDEN = $(foreach dir,./,$(wildcard .*))