Makefile Tutorial
- Makefile Syntax
- Make Overview
- Running the Examples
- Simple Examples
- Variables (Section 2.4)
- Magic Implicit Commands (Section 2.5)
- Using Wildcard Characters (Section 4.2)
- The Wildcard Function (Section 4.2.3)
- The vpath Directive (Section 4.3.2)
- Targets
  - The all target (Section 4.4)
  - Multiple targets $@ (Section 4.8)
  - Multiple targets via wildcards % (Section 4.8)
- Static Patterns
  - Static Pattern Rules (Section 4.10)
  - Static Pattern Rules and Filter (Section 4.10)
- Double-Colon Rules (Section 4.11)
- Command Echoing/Silencing (Section 5.1)
- Command Execution (Section 5.2)
- Default Shell (Section 5.2)
- DELETE_ON_ERROR (Section 5.4)
- Error handling with -k, -i, and i (Section 5.4)
- Handling errors with - and -i (Section 5.4)
- Interrupting or killing make (Section 5.5)
- Recursive use of make (Section 5.6)
- Use export for recursive make (Section 5.6)
- Another export example (Section 5.6)
- Variables
  - EXPORT_ALL_VARIABLES (Section 5.6)
  - Variables Reference (Section 6.1)
  - Variables Types = vs := (Section 6.2)
  - Variables Expansion (Section 6.2)
  - Variables Conditional set with ?= (Section 6.2)
  - Variables: watch out for end-of-line spaces (Section 6.2)
  - Variables: Text replacement $(var:a=b) (Section 6.3)
  - Variables: Text replacement % (Section 6.3)
  - Undefined Variables (Section 6.5)
  - Variable appending (Section 6.6)
  - Target-specific variables (Section 6.10)
  - Pattern-specific variables (Section 6.11)
  - Check if a variable is empty (Section 7.2)
  - ifdef (Section 7.2)
  - Conditional if/else (Section 7.1)
  - Automatic Variables: $@, $^, $?, etc (Section 10.5)
- Command line arguments and override (Section 6.7)
- List of commands and define (Section 6.8)
- Testing make flags with findstring and MAKEFLAG(Section 7.3)
- Functions
  - Functions (Section 8.1)
  - The foreach function (Section 8.4)
  - The if function (Section 8.5)
  - The call function (Section 8.6)
  - The shell function (Section 8.8)
- Arguments to make (Section 9)
- Implicit Rules (Section 10)

Makefile Tutorial

Sources:

theicfire/makefiletutorial - This tutorial mostly copied from there, but has the advantage to be just a markdown file.
GNU Make Book - This tutorial teaches mainly through examples in order to help quickly explain the concepts in the book.
GNU make manual (HTML) - Other Formats Here (PDF, TEXT, etc)
Adding help to a Makefile

Makefile Syntax

A Makefile consists of a set of rules. A rule generally looks like this:

targets : prerequisites
   command
   command
   command

The targets are usually file names that are generated by a program, separated by spaces. Typically, there is only one per rule. Examples of targets are executable or object files. A target can also be the name of an action to carry out, such as "clean".
The prerequisites (also called dependencies) are also file names, separated by spaces, used as input to create the target. A target often depends on several files. However, the rule that specifies a recipe for the target need not have any prerequisites. For example, the rule containing the delete command associated with the target "clean" does not have prerequisites.
The commands are a series of steps typically used to make the target(s). These need to start with a <tab> character, not spaces.

Make Overview

The main use of Make is to list out a set of directions to compile some c or c++ files, although it can solve other similar problems. The user gives Make some goal, say "generate the file hello".

The Makefile specifies how to make this file. Here's an example:

# Since the blah target is first, it is the default target and will be run when we run "make"
blah: blah.o
	cc blah.o -o blah

blah.o: blah.c
	cc -c blah.c -o blah.o

blah.c:
	echo "int main() { return 0; }" > blah.c

clean:
	rm -f blah.o blah.c blah

Running the Examples

A makefile is executed with the make command, e.g. make [options] [target1 target2 ...]. By default, when make looks for the makefile, if a makefile name was not included as a parameter, it tries the following names, in order: makefile and Makefile.

You'll need a terminal and make installed. For each example, put the contents in a file called Makefile, and in that directory run the command make. Here is the output of running the above example:

$ make
echo "int main() { return 0; }" > blah.c
cc -c blah.c -o blah.o
cc blah.o -o blah

Some examples, like the above, have a target called "clean". Run it via make clean to delete the files that make generated:

$ make clean
rm -f blah.o blah.c blah

Simple Examples

This makefile has a single target, called some_file. The default target is the first target, so in this case some_file will run.

some_file:
	echo "This line will always print"

This file will make some_file the first time, and the second time notice it's already made, resulting in make: 'some_file' is up to date.

some_file:
	echo "This line will only print once"
	touch some_file

Alternative syntax: same line

some_file: ; touch some_file

The backslash \ character gives us the ability to use multiple lines when the commands are too long

some_file:
	echo This line is too long, so \
		it is broken up into multiple lines

Here, the target some_file "depends" on other_file. When we run make, the default target (some_file, since it's first) will get called. It will first look at its list of dependencies, and if any of them are older, it will first run the targets for those dependencies, and then run itself. The second time this is run, neither target will run because both targets exist.

some_file: other_file
	echo "This will run second, because it depends on other_file"
	touch some_file

other_file:
	echo "This will run first"
	touch other_file

This will always make both targets, because some_file depends on other_file, which is never created.

some_file: other_file
	touch some_file

other_file:
	echo "nothing"

"clean" is often used as a target that removes the output of other targets.

some_file: clean
	touch some_file

clean:
	rm -f some_file

Adding .PHONY to a target will prevent make from confusing the phony target with a file name. In this example, if the file "clean" is created, make clean will still be run. .PHONY is great to use, but I'll skip it in the rest of the examples for simplicity.

some_file:
	touch some_file
	touch clean

.PHONY: clean
clean:
	rm -f some_file
	rm -f clean

Variables (Section 2.4)

Variables can only be strings. Here's an example of using them:

files = file1 file2
some_file: $(files)
	echo "Look at this variable: " $(files)
	touch some_file

file1:
	touch file1
file2:
	touch file2

clean:
	rm -f file1 file2 some_file

Magic Implicit Commands (Section 2.5)

Probably one of the most confusing parts about Make is the hidden coupling between Make and GCC. Make was largely made for GCC, and so makes compiling C/C++ programs "easy".

# Implicit command of: "cc blah.o -o blah"
# Note: Do not put a comment inside of the blah.o rule; the implicit rule will not run!
blah:

# Implicit command of: "cc -c blah.c -o blah.o"
blah.o:

blah.c:
	echo "int main() { return 0; }" > blah.c

clean:
	rm -f blah.o blah blah.c

Using Wildcard Characters (Section 4.2)

We can use wildcards in the target, prerequisites, or commands. Valid wildcards are *, ?, [...]

some_file: *.c
	# create the binary

*.c:
	touch f1.c
	touch f2.c

clean:
	rm -f *.c

The Wildcard Function (Section 4.2.3)

We CANNOT use wildcards in other places, like variable declarations or function arguments Use the wildcard function instead.

wrong = *.o # Wrong
objects := $(wildcard *.c) # Right
some_binary:
	touch f1.c
	touch f2.c
	echo $(wrong)
	echo $(objects)

clean:
	rm -f *.c

The vpath Directive (Section 4.3.2)

Use vpath to specify where some set of prerequisites exist. The format is vpath <pattern> <directories, space/colon seperated> <pattern> can have a %, which matches any zero or more characters. You can also do this globallyish with the variable VPATH

vpath %.h ../headers ../other-directory

some_binary: ../headers blah.h
	touch some_binary

../headers:
	mkdir ../headers

blah.h:
	touch ../headers/blah.h

clean:
	rm -rf ../headers
	rm -f some_binary

Targets

The all target (Section 4.4)

Making multiple targets and you want all of them to run? Make a all target and designate it as .PHONY

all: one two three
.PHONY: all

one:
	touch one
two:
	touch two
three:
	touch three

clean:
	rm -f one two three

Multiple targets `$@` (Section 4.8)

When there are multiple targets for a rule, the commands will be run for each target $@ is a automatic variable that contains the target name.

all: f1.o f2.o

f1.o f2.o:
	echo $@
# Equivalent to:
# f1.o
# 	echo $@
# f2.o
# 	echo $@

Multiple targets via wildcards `%` (Section 4.8)

We can use the wildcard % in targets, that captures zero or more of any character. Note we do not use *.o, because that is just the string *.o, which might be useful in the commands, but is only one target and does not expand.


all: f1.o f2.o
.PHONY: all

%.o:
	echo $@

Static Patterns

Static Pattern Rules (Section 4.10)

Make loves C compilation. And every time it expresses its love, things get confusing. Here's the syntax for a new type of rule called a static pattern:

targets ...: target-pattern: prereq-patterns ...
   commands

The essence is that the a given target is matched by the target-pattern (via a % wildcard). Whatever was matched is called the stem. The stem is then substituted into the prereq-pattern, to generate the target's prereqs.

A typical use case is to compile .c files into .o files. Here's the manual way:

all: foo.o bar.o
.PHONY: all

# The automatic variable $@ matches the target, and $< matches the prerequisite
foo.o: foo.c
	echo "Call gcc to generate $@ from $<"

bar.o: bar.c
	echo "Call gcc to generate bar.o from bar.c"

# Matches all .c files and creates them if they don't exist
%.c:
	touch $@

clean:
	rm -f foo.c bar.c

Here's the more efficient way, using a static pattern rule:

# This Makefile uses less hard coded rules, via static pattern rules
objects = foo.o bar.o
all: $(objects)
.PHONY: all

# Syntax - targets ...: target-pattern: prereq-patterns ...
# In the case of the first target, foo.o, the target-pattern matches foo.o and sets the "stem" to be "foo".
#   It then replaces that stem with the wilecard pattern in prereq-patterns
$(objects): %.o: %.c
	echo "Call gcc to generate $@ from $<"

%.c:
	touch $@

clean:
	rm -f foo.c bar.c

Static Pattern Rules and Filter (Section 4.10)

filter can be used in Static pattern rules to match the correct files. In this example, I made up the .raw and .result extensions.


obj_files = foo.result bar.o lose.o
src_files = foo.raw bar.c lose.c

all: $(obj_files)
.PHONY: all

$(filter %.o,$(obj_files)): %.o: %.c
	echo "target: $@ prereq: $<"
$(filter %.result,$(obj_files)): %.result: %.raw
	echo "target: $@ prereq: $<"

%.c %.raw:
	touch $@

clean:
	rm -f $(src_files)

Double-Colon Rules (Section 4.11)

Double-Colon Rules are rarely used, but allow the same target to run commands from multiple targets. If these were single colons, an warning would be printed and only the second set of commands would run.

all: blah

blah::
	echo "hello"

blah::
	echo "hello again"

clean:
	rm -f $(src_files)

Command Echoing/Silencing (Section 5.1)

Add an @ before a command to stop it from being printed You can also run make with -s to add an @ before each line

all:
	@echo "This make line will not be printed"
	echo "But this will"

Command Execution (Section 5.2)

Each command is run in a new shell (or at least the affect is as such)

all:
	cd ..
	# The cd above does not affect this line, because each command is effectively run in a new shell
	echo `pwd`

	# This cd command affects the next because they are on the same line
	cd ..;echo `pwd`

	# Same as above
	cd ..; \
	echo `pwd`

Default Shell (Section 5.2)

The default shell is /bin/sh. You can change this by changing the variable SHELL:

SHELL=/bin/bash

cool:
	echo "Hello from bash"

DELETE_ON_ERROR (Section 5.4)

The make tool will stop running a rule (and will propogate back to prerequisites) if a command returns a nonzero exit status. DELETE_ON_ERROR will delete the target of a rule if the rule fails in this manner. This will happen for all targets, not just the one it is before like PHONY. It's a good idea to always use this, even though make does not for historical reasons.

.DELETE_ON_ERROR:
all: one two

one:
	touch one
	false

two:
	touch two
	false

Error handling with `-k`, `-i`, and `i` (Section 5.4)

Add -k when running make to continue running even in the face of errors. Helpful if you want to see all the errors of Make at once. Add a "-" before a command to suppress the error Add "-i" to make to have this happen for every command.

Handling errors with `-` and `-i` (Section 5.4)

one:
	# This error will be printed but ignored, and make will continue to run
	-false
	touch one

Interrupting or killing make (Section 5.5)

Note only: If you ctrl+c make, it will delete the newer targets it just made.

Recursive use of make (Section 5.6)

Recursively call a makefile. Use the special $(MAKE) instead of "make" because it will pass the make flags for you and won't itself be affected by them.

new_contents = "hello:\n\ttouch inside_file"
all:
	mkdir -p subdir
	echo $(new_contents) | sed -e 's/^ //' > subdir/makefile
	cd subdir && $(MAKE)

clean:
	rm -rf subdir

Use `export` for recursive make (Section 5.6)

The export directive takes a variable and makes it accessible to sub-make commands. In this example, "cooly" is exported such that the makefile in subdir can use it.

Note: export has the same syntax as sh, but they aren't related (although similar in function)

new_contents = "hello:\n\\techo \$$(cooly)"

all:
	mkdir -p subdir
	echo $(new_contents) | sed -e 's/^ //' > subdir/makefile
	@echo "---MAKEFILE CONTENTS---"
	@cd subdir && cat makefile
	@echo "---END MAKEFILE CONTENTS---"
	cd subdir && $(MAKE)

# Note that variables and exports. They are set/affected globally.
cooly = "The subdirectory can see me!"
export cooly
# This would nullify the line above: unexport cooly

clean:
	rm -rf subdir

Another export example (Section 5.6)

You need to export variables to have them run in the shell as well.

one=this will only work locally
export two=we can run subcommands with this

.PHONY: all
all:
	@echo $(one)
	@echo $$one
	@echo $(two)
	@echo $$two

Variables

`EXPORT_ALL_VARIABLES` (Section 5.6)

EXPORT_ALL_VARIABLES does what you might expect

.EXPORT_ALL_VARIABLES:
new_contents = "hello:\n\techo \$$(cooly)"

cooly = "The subdirectory can see me!"
# This would nullify the line above: unexport cooly

all:
	mkdir -p subdir
	echo $(new_contents) | sed -e 's/^ //' > subdir/makefile
	@echo "---MAKEFILE CONTENTS---"
	@cd subdir && cat makefile
	@echo "---END MAKEFILE CONTENTS---"
	cd subdir && $(MAKE)

clean:
	rm -rf subdir

Variables Reference (Section 6.1)

Reference variables using ${} or $()

x = dude

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(x)
	echo ${x}

	# Bad practice, but works
	echo $x

Variables Types `=` vs `:=` (Section 6.2)

Two flavors of variables:

recursive (use =) - only looks for the variables when the command is used, not when it's defined.
simply expanded (use :=) - like normal imperative programming -- only those defined so far get expanded

# Recursive variable. This will print "later" below
one = one ${later_variable}
# Simply expanded variable. This will not print "later" below
two := two ${later_variable}

later_variable = later

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(one)
	echo $(two)

Variables Expansion (Section 6.2)

Simply expanded allows you to append to a variable. Recursive definitions will give an infinite loop error.

one = hello
# one gets defined as a simply expanded variable (:=) and thus can handle appending
one := ${one} there

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(one)

Variables Conditional set with `?=` (Section 6.2)

?= only sets variables if they have not yet been set

one = hello
one ?= will not be set
two ?= will be set

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(one)
	echo $(two)

Variables: watch out for end-of-line spaces (Section 6.2)

Spaces at the end of a line are not stripped, ones at the start are To make a variable with a single space, have a variable guard

with_spaces = hello   # with_spaces has many spaces after "hello"
after = $(with_spaces)there

nullstring =
space = $(nullstring) # Make a variable with a single space.

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo "$(after)"
	echo start"$(space)"end

Variables: Text replacement `$(var:a=b)` (Section 6.3)

You can text replace at the end of each space seperated word using $(var:a=b) Note: don't put spaces in between anything; it will be seen as a search or replacement term Note: This is shorthand for using make's patsubst expansion function

foo := a.o b.o c.o
# bar becomes a.c b.c c.c
bar := $(foo:.o=.c)

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(bar)

Variables: Text replacement % (Section 6.3)

You can use % as well to grab some text!

foo := a.o b.o c.o
bar := $(foo:%.o=%)

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(bar)

Undefined Variables (Section 6.5)

An undefined variable is actually an empty string!

.PHONY: all
all:
	# Undefined variables are just empty strings!
	echo $(nowhere)

Variable appending (Section 6.6)

Use += to append

foo := start
foo += more

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(foo)

Target-specific variables (Section 6.10)

Variables can be assigned for specific targets

all: one = cool

.PHONY: all
all:
	echo one is defined: $(one)

.PHONY: other
other:
	echo one is nothing: $(one)

Pattern-specific variables (Section 6.11)

You can assign variables for specific target patterns

%.c: one = cool

blah.c:
	echo one is defined: $(one)

.PHONY: other
other:
	echo one is nothing: $(one)

Check if a variable is empty (Section 7.2)

nullstring =
foo = $(nullstring) # end of line; there is a space here

all:
ifeq ($(strip $(foo)),)
	echo "foo is empty after being stripped"
endif
ifeq ($(nullstring),)
	echo "nullstring doesn't even have spaces"
endif

`ifdef` (Section 7.2)

ifdef does not expand variable references; it just sees if something is defined at all

bar =
foo = $(bar)

all:
ifdef foo
	echo "foo is defined"
endif
ifdef bar
	echo "but bar is not"
endif

Conditional if/else (Section 7.1)

foo = ok

all:
ifeq ($(foo), ok)
	echo "foo equals ok"
else
	echo "nope"
endif

Automatic Variables: `$@`, `$^`, `$?`, etc (Section 10.5)

There are many automatic variables, but often only a few show up:

hey: one two
	# Outputs "hey", since this is the first target
    # $@ - is a macro that refers to the target
	echo $@

	# Outputs all prerequisites that are newer than the target, with spaces between them
	echo $?

	# Outputs all prerequisites
    # $^ is a macro that refers to all dependencies
	echo $^

	touch hey

one:
	touch one

two:
	touch two

clean:
	rm -f hey one two

Command line arguments and `override` (Section 6.7)

You can override variables that come from the command line by using "override". Here we ran make with make some_option=hi

# Overrides command line arguments
override option_one = did_override
# Does not override command line arguments
option_two = not_override
.PHONY: all
all:
	echo $(option_one)
	echo $(option_two)

List of commands and `define` (Section 6.8)

define is actually just a list of commands. It has nothing with being a function. Note here that it's a bit different than having a semi-colon between commands, because each is run in a seperate shell, as expected.

one = export blah="I was set!"; echo $$blah

define two
export blah=set
echo $$blah
endef

# One and two are different.

.PHONY: all
all:
	@echo "This prints 'I was set'"
	@$(one)
	@echo "This does not print 'I was set' because each command runs in a seperate shell"
	@$(two)

Testing make flags with `findstring` and `MAKEFLAG`(Section 7.3)

Run this example with make -i to see it print out the echo statement.

bar =
foo = $(bar)

all:
# Search for the "-i" flag. MAKEFLAGS is just a list of single characters, one per flag. So look for "i" in this case.
ifneq (,$(findstring i, $(MAKEFLAGS)))
	echo "i was passed to MAKEFLAGS"
endif

Functions

Functions (Section 8.1)

Functions are mainly just for text processing. Call functions with $(fn, arguments) or ${fn, arguments}. You can make your own using the call builtin function. Make has a decent amount of builtin functions.

bar := ${subst not, totally, "I am not superman"}
all:
	@echo $(bar)

If you want to replace spaces or commas, use variables

comma := ,
empty:=
space := $(empty) $(empty)
foo := a b c
bar := $(subst $(space),$(comma),$(foo))

all:
	@echo $(bar)

Do NOT include spaces in the arguments after the first. That will be seen as part of the string.

comma := ,
empty:=
space := $(empty) $(empty)
foo := a b c
bar := $(subst $(space), $(comma) , $(foo))

all:
	# Output is ", a , b , c". Notice the spaces introduced
	@echo $(bar)

The foreach function (Section 8.4)

The foreach function looks like this: $(foreach var,list,text).

It converts one list of words (seperated by speces) to another.

var is set to each word in list, and text is expanded for each word. This appends an exclamation after each word:

foo := who are you
# For each "word" in foo, output that same word with an exclamation after
bar := $(foreach wrd,$(foo),$(wrd)!)

all:
	# Output is "who! are! you!"
	@echo $(bar)

The if function (Section 8.5)

if checks if the first argument is nonempty. If so runs the second argument, otherwise runs the third.

foo := $(if this-is-not-empty,then!,else!)
empty :=
bar := $(if $(empty),then!,else!)

all:
	@echo $(foo)
	@echo $(bar)

The call function (Section 8.6)

Call: $(call variable,param,param)

Sets each of the params as $(1), $(2), etc.

$(0) is set as the variable name.

sweet_new_fn = Variable Name: $(0) First: $(1) Second: $(2) Empty Variable: $(3)

all:
	# Outputs "Variable Name: sweet_new_fn First: go Second: tigers Empty Variable:"
	@echo $(call sweet_new_fn, go, tigers)

The shell function (Section 8.8)

shell - This calls the shell, but it replaces newlines with spaces!

all:
	@echo $(shell ls -la) # Very ugly because the newlines are gone!

Arguments to make (Section 9)

There's a nice list of options that can be run from make. Check out --dry-run, --touch, --old-file.

You can have multiple targets to make, i.e. make clean run test runs the 'clean' goal, then 'run', and then 'test'.

Implicit Rules (Section 10)

Perhaps the most confusing part of make is the magic rules and variables that are made. Here's a list of implicit rules:

Compiling a C program: n.o is made automatically from n.c with a command of the form $(CC) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS)
Compiling a C++ program: n.o is made automatically from n.cc or n.cpp with a command of the form $(CXX) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS)
Linking a single object file: n is made automatically from n.o by running the command $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) n.o $(LOADLIBES) $(LDLIBS)

As such, the important variables used by implicit rules are:

CC: Program for compiling C programs; default cc
CXX: Program for compiling C++ programs; default G++
CFLAGS: Extra flags to give to the C compiler
CXXFLAGS: Extra flags to give to the C++ compiler
CPPFLAGS: Extra flags to give to the C preprosessor
LDFLAGS: Extra flags to give to compilers when they are supposed to invoke the linker

CC = gcc # Flag for implicit rules
CFLAGS = -g # Flag for implicit rules. Turn on debug info

# Implicit rule #1: blah is built via the C linker implicit rule
# Implicit rule #2:  blah.o is built via the C++ compilation implicit rule, because blah.cpp exists
blah: blah.o

blah.c:
	echo "int main() { return 0; }" > blah.c

clean:
	rm -f blah*

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