Why is my makefile not making one of the targets? - c

Question

I'm required to submit my program along with a makefile for an assignment but for some reason it is not making the target helper.o even though the command for that step (gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c helper.c) works when I type it into the command line manually. When I type the make command I get this error:
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c createTweet.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c displayTweets.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c searchTweetsByKeyword.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c countStopWords.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c deleteTweet.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c saveTweetsToFile.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c loadTweetsFromFile.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c sortID.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c addNodeToList.c
cc -c -o mainA3.o mainA3.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o helper.o mainA3.o -o matiwosEyoelA3
gcc: error: helper.o: No such file or directory
make: *** [makefile:2: outputA3] Error 1 '''
Here: is my makefile:
outputA3: createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o mainA3.o
gcc -Wall -std=c99 createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o helper.o mainA3.o -o outputA3
helper.o: helper.h headerA3.h helper.c
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c helper.c
createTweet.o: createTweet.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c createTweet.c
displayTweets.o: displayTweets.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c displayTweets.c
searchTweetsByKeyword.o: searchTweetsByKeyword.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c searchTweetsByKeyword.c
countStopWords.o: countStopWords.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c countStopWords.c
deleteTweet.o: deleteTweet.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c deleteTweet.c
saveTweetsToFile.o: saveTweetsToFile.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c saveTweetsToFile.c
loadTweetsFromFile.o: loadTweetsFromFile.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c loadTweetsFromFile.c
sortID.o: sortID.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c sortID.c
addNodeToList.o: addNodeToList.c helper.h headerA3.h
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -c addNodeToList.c
clean:
rm *.o outputA3
Why might this be happening?

Answer 1

Your matiwosEyoelA3: ... does not list helper.o as a dependency.
That's a problem because you repeat so many file names and violate the "don't write it twice" rule. Use variables and make's builtin variables like $^.
e.g.
OBJECTS = createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o \
countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o \
loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o \
mainA3.o helper.o
outputA3: $(OBJECTS)
gcc -Wall -std=c99 -o $# $^

Answer 2

Your target outputA3: does not depend on helper.o.
Change the first line to -
outputA3: createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o mainA3.o helper.o
gcc -Wall -std=c99 createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o helper.o mainA3.o -o outputA3
(notice the extra helper.o at the end)
One way to avoid such issues in the future is to use $^ to refer to all the dependencies instead of listing them.
So you can change the target to -
outputA3: createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o mainA3.o helper.o
gcc -Wall -std=c99 $^ -o $#
This way you don't have to write the dependencies again and if you miss something you get a linker error telling you which file is missing.

Answer 3

helper.o is not in the list of dependencies for outputA3 target, while it is in the linking list of requisites. This makes make not to compile it, but the linker blames at you because it is not found.
A good idea can be to create a make variable with the set of objects of outputA3, as in:
outputA3_objs = createTweet.o displayTweets.o searchTweetsByKeyword.o countStopWords.o deleteTweet.o saveTweetsToFile.o loadTweetsFromFile.o sortID.o addNodeToList.o helper.o mainA3.o
outputA3: $(outputA3_objs)
gcc -Wall -std=c99 $(outputA3_objs) -o $#
and this way, if you need to change the list, you have to do it in only one place, making your Makefile more robust to changes.

Answer 4

make is much more powerful than what you apparently think. Thanks to the other answers you fixed your Makefile. Here is a bit simpler and less error prone Makefile (for GNU make):
SRC := $(wildcard *.c)
OBJ := $(patsubst %.c,%.o,$(SRC))
CC := gcc
CFLAGS := -Wall -std=c99
outputA3: $(OBJ)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $^ -o $#
%.o: %.c helper.h headerA3.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
.PHONY: clean
clean:
rm -f $(OBJ) outputA3
This assumes that the executable is outputA3 (as in your own Makefile) and not matiwosEyoelA3 (as in the error messages you show), and that all C files are part of the project. Adapt if needed.
Note: GNU make already knows how to compile and link. If you accept that your executable is named mainA3 instead of outputA3 or matiwosEyoelA3, the following should also work:
CC := gcc
CFLAGS := -Wall -std=c99
mainA3: $(patsubst %.c,%.o,$(wildcard *.c))
%.o: helper.h headerA3.h
.PHONY: clean
clean:
rm -f *.o mainA3