How to detect if the makefile `--silent/--quiet` command line option was set?

Question

How to detect if the makefile --silent / --quiet command line options was set?

Related questions:

1. how to detect if --quiet option is specified with rake

Answer 1

I think you need:

$(findstring s,$(word 1, $(MAKEFLAGS)))

Because MAKEFLAGS has long options, too, eg:

MAKEFLAGS=s -j80 --jobserver-auth=4,6

So, IOW:

 # Set SILENT to 's' if --quiet/-s set, otherwise ''.
 SILENT := $(findstring s,$(word 1, $(MAKEFLAGS)))

Answer 2

If you call either make --quiet or --silent, the variable {MAKEFLAGS} is set only to s. And if you add other options like --ignore-errors and --keep-going, the variable {MAKEFLAGS} is set to iks. Then, you can capture it with this:

ECHOCMD:=/bin/echo -e
SHELL := /bin/bash

all:
    printf 'Calling with "%s" %s\n' "${MAKECMDGOALS}" "${MAKEFLAGS}";

    if [[ "ws" == "w$(findstring s,${MAKEFLAGS})" ]]; then \
        printf '--silent option was set\n'; \
    fi

References:

1. Recursive make: correct way to insert `$(MAKEFLAGS)`
2. How to set MAKEFLAGS from Makefile, in order to remove default implicit-rules
3. Remove target from MAKECMDGOALS?
4. https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.61/html_node/The-Make-Macro-MAKEFLAGS.html

Answer 3

make            gives  MAKEFLAGS = ""
make -j8        gives  MAKEFLAGS = " -j8 --jobserver-auth=3,4"
make -j8 -s     gives  MAKEFLAGS = "s -j8 --jobserver-auth=3,4"
make -j8 -s -B  gives  MAKEFLAGS = "Bs -j8 --jobserver-auth=3,4"

So this should do the trick:

$(findstring s,$(filter-out -%,$(MAKEFLAGS)))

It returns "s" or an empty string, which is suitable as the condition for an $(if ...).