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Questions tagged [makefile]

A makefile is an input file for the build control language/tool make. It specifies targets and dependencies along with associated commands to perform (a.k.a. recipes) to update the targets.

A makefile is usually an input file for the build control language/tool make. The make utility and the corresponding makefile format is standardized by POSIX.

Common newbie mistakes:

Makefile variable assignment error in echo - running two distinct commands in a recipe and not realizing the shell from the first will exit and lose any changes to the environment.

Make implementations

More information

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What is the purpose of .PHONY in a Makefile?

What does .PHONY mean in a Makefile? I have gone through this, but it is too complicated. Can somebody explain it to me in simple terms?
Lazer
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What is the difference between the GNU Makefile variable assignments =, ?=, := and +=?

Can anybody give a clear explanation of how variable assignment really works in Makefiles. What is the difference between : VARIABLE = value VARIABLE ?= value VARIABLE := value VARIABLE += value I have read the section in GNU Make's manual,…
mmoris
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Passing additional variables from command line to make

Can I pass variables to a GNU Makefile as command line arguments? In other words, I want to pass some arguments which will eventually become variables in the Makefile.
Pablo
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makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop

This is my makefile: all:ll ll:ll.c gcc -c -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c -o ll $@ $< clean : \rm -fr ll When I try to make clean or make make, I get this error: :makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop. How can I fix it?
Rahul Reddy
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What do the makefile symbols $@ and $< mean?

CC=g++ CFLAGS=-c -Wall LDFLAGS= SOURCES=main.cpp hello.cpp factorial.cpp OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:.cpp=.o) EXECUTABLE=hello all: $(SOURCES) $(EXECUTABLE) $(EXECUTABLE): $(OBJECTS) $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) -o $@ .cpp.o: $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -o…
Mohit Deshpande
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What is the difference between using a Makefile and CMake to compile the code?

I code in C/C++ and use a (GNU) Makefile to compile the code. I can do the same with CMake and get a Makefile. However, what is the difference between using a Makefile and CMake to compile the code?
rish
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Passing arguments to "make run"

I use Makefiles. I have a target called run which runs the build target. Simplified, it looks like the following: prog: .... ... run: prog ./prog Is there any way to pass arguments? So that make run asdf --> ./prog asdf make run the dog kicked…
anon
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How do I write the 'cd' command in a makefile?

For example, I have something like this in my makefile: all: cd some_directory But when I typed make I saw only 'cd some_directory', like in the echo command.
Davit Siradeghyan
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What's the opposite of 'make install', i.e. how do you uninstall a library in Linux?

While running ./configure --prefix=/mingw on a MinGW/MSYS system for a library I had previously run './configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install' I came across this message: WARNING: A version of the Vamp plugin SDK is already…
psas
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gcc makefile error: "No rule to make target ..."

I'm trying to use GCC (linux) with a makefile to compile my project. I get the following error which is can't seem to decipher in this context: "No rule to make target 'vertex.cpp', needed by 'vertex.o'. Stop." This is the makefile: a.out:…
Meir
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How to discover number of *logical* cores on Mac OS X?

How can you tell, from the command line, how many cores are on the machine when you're running Mac OS X? On Linux, I use: x=$(awk '/^processor/ {++n} END {print n+1}' /proc/cpuinfo) It's not perfect, but it's close. This is intended to get fed to…
Mike DeSimone
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What are Makefile.am and Makefile.in?

These two files are mostly seen in open source projects. What are they for, and how do they work?
Mask
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How do I force make/GCC to show me the commands?

I'm trying to debug a compilation problem, but I cannot seem to get GCC (or maybe it is make??) to show me the actual compiler and linker commands it is executing. Here is the output I am seeing: CCLD …
hernejj
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How to install and use "make" in Windows?

I'm following the instructions of someone whose repository I cloned to my machine. I want to use the make command as part of setting up the code environment, but I'm using Windows. I searched online, but I could only find a make.exe file, a…
Hashem Elezabi
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How to assign the output of a command to a Makefile variable

I need to execute some make rules conditionally, only if the Python installed is greater than a certain version (say 2.5). I thought I could do something like executing: python -c 'import sys; print int(sys.version_info >= (2,5))' and then using…
fortran
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