I'm currently trying to create a Makefile for a c university project, but reading through the tutorials hasn't quite helped me (also, the makefile is not part of the evaluation process, and we aren't taught how to do it)
My objective is making the makefile automatic, so it automatically creates object files from .c files in src (src/*.c), puts the object files in the bin folder, and links them into an executable in the main directory.
project/
bin/
(object files)
src/
(source files)
executable
Makefile
So far, I've roughly put together this makefile and test source code, but it doesn't work the way I intend it to, which I'll explain how just ahead:
#compiler used
COMPILER = gcc
#flags for individual object file compilation
FLAGS = -Wall -ansi -g
#RELEASE
# -Wall -ansi -O3
#DEVELOPMENT
# -Wall -ansi -g
#source .c files
SOURCE = $(wildcard src/*.c)
#object files created
OBJECTS = $(SOURCE:.c=.o)
OBJECTS = $(SOURCE: src/=bin/)
#executable name
EXECUTABLE = app
############################################################
all: $(EXECUTABLE)
$(EXECUTABLE): $(OBJECTS)
$(COMPILER) $(FLAGS) -o $(EXECUTABLE) $(OBJECTS)
%.o: %.c
$(COMPILER) $(FLAGS) -c %< -o %#
The result is the following command:
user#user-lenovo:~/Desktop/C Projects/AED/project$ make
gcc -Wall -ansi -g -o app src/main.c src/test.c
Ironically, it works, but really shouldn't. It also defeats the purpose of having a makefile, as everything is compiled again once one change is detected.
First of all, what I noticed is OBJECTS directly copied SOURCE, and didn't substitute .c for .o, or src/ for bin/. I've tried substituting the '=' for ':=' but the result is the same, and I don't quite understand what the difference between them is in the first place. My idea would be src/main.c becoming bin/main.o, for example.
%.o: %.c
$(COMPILER) $(FLAGS) -c %< -o %#
This part is my also failed attempt at generating all the object files individually with a single target. I tried reading up on it, but couldn't figure out how these work: '%<', '%#' or the '%.o' and '%.c'
I do believe it isn't being run at all though, since no object files showed up.
I hope you can help me fix this mess up, thanks in advance!
OBJECTS = $(SOURCE:.c=.o)
OBJECTS = $(SOURCE: src/=bin/)
You're assigning to OBJECTS twice there - the first result gets overwritten by the second which doesn't work. You want to combine them into one statement like this
OBJECTS=$(SOURCE:src/%.c=bin/%.o)
Your next problem is you need to tell make that "bin/whatever.o" is built from "src/whatever.c". Currently it'll look for "whatever.c" in "bin/"
So your recipe for building .o files needs the directories added
bin/%.o: src/%.c
$(COMPILER) $(FLAGS) -c $< -o $#
You also should have $# instead of %# and $< instead of %<
Automatic variables are expanded with the $ prefix, as any other variable, not %.
As your object and source files are in different directories you cannot simply %.o: %.c.
Try:
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -ansi -g
OBJECTS = $(patsubst src/%.c,bin/%.o,$(SOURCE))
bin/%.o: src/%.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
Note: the standard make variable for the C compiler is CCand CFLAGS for the flags. It is better to use them.
Related
I have the following makefile that I use to build a program (a kernel, actually) that I'm working on. Its from scratch and I'm learning about the process, so its not perfect, but I think its powerful enough at this point for my level of experience writing makefiles.
AS = nasm
CC = gcc
LD = ld
TARGET = core
BUILD = build
SOURCES = source
INCLUDE = include
ASM = assembly
VPATH = $(SOURCES)
CFLAGS = -Wall -O -fstrength-reduce -fomit-frame-pointer -finline-functions \
-nostdinc -fno-builtin -I $(INCLUDE)
ASFLAGS = -f elf
#CFILES = core.c consoleio.c system.c
CFILES = $(foreach dir,$(SOURCES),$(notdir $(wildcard $(dir)/*.c)))
SFILES = assembly/start.asm
SOBJS = $(SFILES:.asm=.o)
COBJS = $(CFILES:.c=.o)
OBJS = $(SOBJS) $(COBJS)
build : $(TARGET).img
$(TARGET).img : $(TARGET).elf
c:/python26/python.exe concat.py stage1 stage2 pad.bin core.elf floppy.img
$(TARGET).elf : $(OBJS)
$(LD) -T link.ld -o $# $^
$(SOBJS) : $(SFILES)
$(AS) $(ASFLAGS) $< -o $#
%.o: %.c
#echo Compiling $<...
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
#Clean Script - Should clear out all .o files everywhere and all that.
clean:
-del *.img
-del *.o
-del assembly\*.o
-del core.elf
My main issue with this makefile is that when I modify a header file that one or more C files include, the C files aren't rebuilt. I can fix this quite easily by having all of my header files be dependencies for all of my C files, but that would effectively cause a complete rebuild of the project any time I changed/added a header file, which would not be very graceful.
What I want is for only the C files that include the header file I change to be rebuilt, and for the entire project to be linked again. I can do the linking by causing all header files to be dependencies of the target, but I cannot figure out how to make the C files be invalidated when their included header files are newer.
I've heard that GCC has some commands to make this possible (so the makefile can somehow figure out which files need to be rebuilt) but I can't for the life of me find an actual implementation example to look at. Can someone post a solution that will enable this behavior in a makefile?
EDIT: I should clarify, I'm familiar with the concept of putting the individual targets in and having each target.o require the header files. That requires me to be editing the makefile every time I include a header file somewhere, which is a bit of a pain. I'm looking for a solution that can derive the header file dependencies on its own, which I'm fairly certain I've seen in other projects.
As already pointed out elsewhere on this site, see this page:
Auto-Dependency Generation
In short, gcc can automatically create .d dependency files for you, which are mini makefile fragments containing the dependencies of the .c file you compiled.
Every time you change the .c file and compile it, the .d file will be updated.
Besides adding the -M flag to gcc, you'll need to include the .d files in the makefile (like Chris wrote above).
There are some more complicated issues in the page which are solved using sed, but you can ignore them and do a "make clean" to clear away the .d files whenever make complains about not being able to build a header file that no longer exists.
You could add a 'make depend' command as others have stated but why not get gcc to create dependencies and compile at the same time:
DEPS := $(COBJS:.o=.d)
-include $(DEPS)
%.o: %.c
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) -o $# $<
The '-MF' parameter specifies a file to store the dependencies in.
The dash at the start of '-include' tells Make to continue when the .d file doesn't exist (e.g. on first compilation).
Note there seems to be a bug in gcc regarding the -o option. If you set the object filename to say obj/_file__c.o then the generated _file_.d will still contain _file_.o, not obj/_file_c.o.
This is equivalent to Chris Dodd's answer, but uses a different naming convention (and coincidentally doesn't require the sed magic. Copied from a later duplicate.
If you are using a GNU compiler, the compiler can assemble a list of dependencies for you. Makefile fragment:
depend: .depend
.depend: $(SOURCES)
rm -f ./.depend
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^>>./.depend;
include .depend
There is also the tool makedepend, but I never liked it as much as gcc -MM
You'll have to make individual targets for each C file, and then list the header file as a dependency. You can still use your generic targets, and just place the .h dependencies afterwards, like so:
%.o: %.c
#echo Compiling $<...
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
foo.c: bar.h
# And so on...
Basically, you need to dynamically create the makefile rules to rebuild the object files when the header files change. If you use gcc and gnumake, this is fairly easy; just put something like:
$(OBJDIR)/%.d: %.c
$(CC) -MM -MG $(CPPFLAGS) $< | sed -e 's,^\([^:]*\)\.o[ ]*:,$(#D)/\1.o $(#D)/\1.d:,' >$#
ifneq ($(MAKECMDGOALS),clean)
include $(SRCS:%.c=$(OBJDIR)/%.d)
endif
in your makefile.
Over and above what #mipadi said, you can also explore the use of the '-M' option to generate a record of the dependencies. You might even generate those into a separate file (perhaps 'depend.mk') which you then include in the makefile. Or you can find a 'make depend' rule which edits the makefile with the correct dependencies (Google terms: "do not remove this line" and depend).
Simpler solution: Just use the Makefile to have the .c to .o compilation rule be dependent on the header file(s) and whatever else is relevant in your project as a dependency.
E.g., in the Makefile somewhere:
DEPENDENCIES=mydefs.h yourdefs.h Makefile GameOfThrones.S07E01.mkv
::: (your other Makefile statements like rules
::: for constructing executables or libraries)
# Compile any .c to the corresponding .o file:
%.o: %.c $(DEPENDENCIES)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
None of the answers worked for me. E.g. Martin Fido's answer suggests gcc can create dependency file, but when I tried that it was generating empty (zero bytes) object files for me without any warnings or errors. It might be a gcc bug. I am on
$ gcc --version gcc (GCC) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-16)
So here's my complete Makefile that works for me; it's a combination of solutions + something that wasn't mentioned by anyone else (e.g. "suffix replacement rule" specified as .cc.o:):
CC = g++
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -std=c++0x
INCLUDES = -I./includes/
# LFLAGS = -L../lib
# LIBS = -lmylib -lm
# List of all source files
SRCS = main.cc cache.cc
# Object files defined from source files
OBJS = $(SRCS:.cc=.o)
# # define the executable file
MAIN = cache_test
#List of non-file based targets:
.PHONY: depend clean all
## .DEFAULT_GOAL := all
# List of dependencies defined from list of object files
DEPS := $(OBJS:.o=.d)
all: $(MAIN)
-include $(DEPS)
$(MAIN): $(OBJS)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -o $(MAIN) $(OBJS) $(LFLAGS) $(LIBS)
#suffix replacement rule for building .o's from .cc's
#build dependency files first, second line actually compiles into .o
.cc.o:
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) $<
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -o $# $<
clean:
$(RM) *.o *~ $(MAIN) *.d
Notice I used .cc .. The above Makefile is easy to adjust for .c files.
Also notice importance of these two lines :
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) $<
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -o $# $<
so gcc is called once to build a dependency file first, and then actually compiles a .cc file. And so on for each source file.
I believe the mkdep command is what you want. It actually scans .c files for #include lines and creates a dependency tree for them. I believe Automake/Autoconf projects use this by default.
I want to compile many source file and build a library from them.
My makefile looks approximately like this:
SOURCES := /home/test/src/\*.c
OBJECTS := $(SOURCES:.c=.o)
.PHONY: compileLibrary
compileLibrary:
$(CC) -fPIC -c $(SOURCES) -o $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) -shared -o libshared.so $(OBJECTS)
How ever the process does not iterate over each source file, it seems that makefile does not replace the * in SOURCES by its value.
*.c, on its own, is not expanded, you have to use the wildcard function (like $(wildcard *.c))
It is *.c, not \*.c. \ is escape and removes the special meaning of *.
Obviously your makefile shouldn't contain absolute path. Normally the current directory has to be the one where the makefile is in, so take advantage of it.
You should be actually using the features of make:
libshared.so: $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) -shared -o $# $<
compileLibrary: libshared.so
(note: you can probably do without the compilation rule, because the default is likely good enough)
I am trying to use this Makefile for a C Program. Could you please share with me a way how I can understand the Make utility better? I am trying the following:
# stack/Makefile
CC := gcc
CFLAGS += -std=c99
CFLAGS += -Wall
CFLAGS += -Wextra
CFLAGS += -g
VPATH = main src
all: bin/main.exe clean run
bin/main.exe: bin/main.o bin/stack.o
$(CC) -o $# $^ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDLIBS)
bin/main.o: main.c
bin/stack.o: stack.c stack.h
bin/%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
demo:
../bin/main.exe
clean:
rm -f bin/*.o
run:
bin/main.exe
.PHONY: all clean run
And I getting this message:
gcc -std=c99 -Wall -Wextra -g -c -o bin/main.o main.c
error: unable to open output file 'bin/main.o': 'No such file or directory'
1 error generated.
make: *** [bin/main.o] Error 1
The error stems from the fact that your Makefile wants to
generate the executable and object files in subdirectory bin but it
contains no rule to ensure that bin exists when it is
needed. As #JonathanLeffler comments, you can solve that
just by manually creating bin yourself.
But it is often desired that a Makefile itself will ensure
that a subdirectory, or some other resource, exists when it
is needed, and you probably assumed that the pattern-rule
bin/%.o: %.c
would create bin as needed. It won't.
Your Makefile can ensure the existence of bin if you
amend it like this:
Somewhere below the all rule, add a new target:
bin:
mkdir -p $#
This is to make the bin subdirectory if it doesn't exist.
Then change the rule:
bin/%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
to:
bin/%.o: %.c | bin
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
The additional | bin is an example of an order-only prequisite
It means: If any of the targets (the bin/%.o things) needs to be remade from any of preceding prequisites (the ones before |, i.e. the %.c
things), then bin must be made first. So, as soon as anything needs to be made in bin, bin will be made first.
There is another more basic flaw in your Makefile. all is dependent on clean, so every time you successfully build
your program the object files are deleted. I understand that you intend this, but it entirely
defeats the purpose of make, which is to avoid the need to rebuild everything (object files, executables) every
time by instead just rebuilding those things that have become out-of-date with respect to their prerequisites.
So all should not depend on clean, and then an object file will be recompiled only if it needs to
be recompiled, i.e. is older than the corresponding source file. If and when you want to clean out the
object files, run make clean.
Finally, your demo rule:
demo:
../bin/main.exe
is inconsistent with the others. The others assume that the bin where the executable
is put is in the current directory. The demo rule assumes it is in the parent of
the current directory. If you correct the demo rule then it will be identical to
the run rule, so it is superfluous, but if it were not superfluous then it should
be added it to the .PHONY targets.
The best way to learn the proper way to use makefiles is to read the manual. Also, you can Google for some simple tutorials.
I have the following makefile that I use to build a program (a kernel, actually) that I'm working on. Its from scratch and I'm learning about the process, so its not perfect, but I think its powerful enough at this point for my level of experience writing makefiles.
AS = nasm
CC = gcc
LD = ld
TARGET = core
BUILD = build
SOURCES = source
INCLUDE = include
ASM = assembly
VPATH = $(SOURCES)
CFLAGS = -Wall -O -fstrength-reduce -fomit-frame-pointer -finline-functions \
-nostdinc -fno-builtin -I $(INCLUDE)
ASFLAGS = -f elf
#CFILES = core.c consoleio.c system.c
CFILES = $(foreach dir,$(SOURCES),$(notdir $(wildcard $(dir)/*.c)))
SFILES = assembly/start.asm
SOBJS = $(SFILES:.asm=.o)
COBJS = $(CFILES:.c=.o)
OBJS = $(SOBJS) $(COBJS)
build : $(TARGET).img
$(TARGET).img : $(TARGET).elf
c:/python26/python.exe concat.py stage1 stage2 pad.bin core.elf floppy.img
$(TARGET).elf : $(OBJS)
$(LD) -T link.ld -o $# $^
$(SOBJS) : $(SFILES)
$(AS) $(ASFLAGS) $< -o $#
%.o: %.c
#echo Compiling $<...
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
#Clean Script - Should clear out all .o files everywhere and all that.
clean:
-del *.img
-del *.o
-del assembly\*.o
-del core.elf
My main issue with this makefile is that when I modify a header file that one or more C files include, the C files aren't rebuilt. I can fix this quite easily by having all of my header files be dependencies for all of my C files, but that would effectively cause a complete rebuild of the project any time I changed/added a header file, which would not be very graceful.
What I want is for only the C files that include the header file I change to be rebuilt, and for the entire project to be linked again. I can do the linking by causing all header files to be dependencies of the target, but I cannot figure out how to make the C files be invalidated when their included header files are newer.
I've heard that GCC has some commands to make this possible (so the makefile can somehow figure out which files need to be rebuilt) but I can't for the life of me find an actual implementation example to look at. Can someone post a solution that will enable this behavior in a makefile?
EDIT: I should clarify, I'm familiar with the concept of putting the individual targets in and having each target.o require the header files. That requires me to be editing the makefile every time I include a header file somewhere, which is a bit of a pain. I'm looking for a solution that can derive the header file dependencies on its own, which I'm fairly certain I've seen in other projects.
As already pointed out elsewhere on this site, see this page:
Auto-Dependency Generation
In short, gcc can automatically create .d dependency files for you, which are mini makefile fragments containing the dependencies of the .c file you compiled.
Every time you change the .c file and compile it, the .d file will be updated.
Besides adding the -M flag to gcc, you'll need to include the .d files in the makefile (like Chris wrote above).
There are some more complicated issues in the page which are solved using sed, but you can ignore them and do a "make clean" to clear away the .d files whenever make complains about not being able to build a header file that no longer exists.
You could add a 'make depend' command as others have stated but why not get gcc to create dependencies and compile at the same time:
DEPS := $(COBJS:.o=.d)
-include $(DEPS)
%.o: %.c
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) -o $# $<
The '-MF' parameter specifies a file to store the dependencies in.
The dash at the start of '-include' tells Make to continue when the .d file doesn't exist (e.g. on first compilation).
Note there seems to be a bug in gcc regarding the -o option. If you set the object filename to say obj/_file__c.o then the generated _file_.d will still contain _file_.o, not obj/_file_c.o.
This is equivalent to Chris Dodd's answer, but uses a different naming convention (and coincidentally doesn't require the sed magic. Copied from a later duplicate.
If you are using a GNU compiler, the compiler can assemble a list of dependencies for you. Makefile fragment:
depend: .depend
.depend: $(SOURCES)
rm -f ./.depend
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^>>./.depend;
include .depend
There is also the tool makedepend, but I never liked it as much as gcc -MM
You'll have to make individual targets for each C file, and then list the header file as a dependency. You can still use your generic targets, and just place the .h dependencies afterwards, like so:
%.o: %.c
#echo Compiling $<...
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
foo.c: bar.h
# And so on...
Basically, you need to dynamically create the makefile rules to rebuild the object files when the header files change. If you use gcc and gnumake, this is fairly easy; just put something like:
$(OBJDIR)/%.d: %.c
$(CC) -MM -MG $(CPPFLAGS) $< | sed -e 's,^\([^:]*\)\.o[ ]*:,$(#D)/\1.o $(#D)/\1.d:,' >$#
ifneq ($(MAKECMDGOALS),clean)
include $(SRCS:%.c=$(OBJDIR)/%.d)
endif
in your makefile.
Over and above what #mipadi said, you can also explore the use of the '-M' option to generate a record of the dependencies. You might even generate those into a separate file (perhaps 'depend.mk') which you then include in the makefile. Or you can find a 'make depend' rule which edits the makefile with the correct dependencies (Google terms: "do not remove this line" and depend).
Simpler solution: Just use the Makefile to have the .c to .o compilation rule be dependent on the header file(s) and whatever else is relevant in your project as a dependency.
E.g., in the Makefile somewhere:
DEPENDENCIES=mydefs.h yourdefs.h Makefile GameOfThrones.S07E01.mkv
::: (your other Makefile statements like rules
::: for constructing executables or libraries)
# Compile any .c to the corresponding .o file:
%.o: %.c $(DEPENDENCIES)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
None of the answers worked for me. E.g. Martin Fido's answer suggests gcc can create dependency file, but when I tried that it was generating empty (zero bytes) object files for me without any warnings or errors. It might be a gcc bug. I am on
$ gcc --version gcc (GCC) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-16)
So here's my complete Makefile that works for me; it's a combination of solutions + something that wasn't mentioned by anyone else (e.g. "suffix replacement rule" specified as .cc.o:):
CC = g++
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -std=c++0x
INCLUDES = -I./includes/
# LFLAGS = -L../lib
# LIBS = -lmylib -lm
# List of all source files
SRCS = main.cc cache.cc
# Object files defined from source files
OBJS = $(SRCS:.cc=.o)
# # define the executable file
MAIN = cache_test
#List of non-file based targets:
.PHONY: depend clean all
## .DEFAULT_GOAL := all
# List of dependencies defined from list of object files
DEPS := $(OBJS:.o=.d)
all: $(MAIN)
-include $(DEPS)
$(MAIN): $(OBJS)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -o $(MAIN) $(OBJS) $(LFLAGS) $(LIBS)
#suffix replacement rule for building .o's from .cc's
#build dependency files first, second line actually compiles into .o
.cc.o:
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) $<
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -o $# $<
clean:
$(RM) *.o *~ $(MAIN) *.d
Notice I used .cc .. The above Makefile is easy to adjust for .c files.
Also notice importance of these two lines :
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) $<
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -o $# $<
so gcc is called once to build a dependency file first, and then actually compiles a .cc file. And so on for each source file.
I believe the mkdep command is what you want. It actually scans .c files for #include lines and creates a dependency tree for them. I believe Automake/Autoconf projects use this by default.
I'm attempting to organize my project directory as follows
shell
|inc/[header files]
|obj/[object files]
|src/[source files]
|Makefile
|Executable
Everything compiles without error with everything in the root folder, but I'm running into difficulty modifying my makefile to accommodate having everything in different directories.
Here's how my makefile looked without directories
OBJS = shutil.o parser.o sshell.o
HEADER_FILES = shell.h parser.h
EXECUTABLE = sshell
CFLAGS = -Wall
CC = gcc
#Create main executable
$(EXECUTABLE): $(OBJS)
$(CC) -o $(EXECUTABLE) $(OBJS)
#Create object files
%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -I. -c -o $# $<
$(OBJS) : $(HEADER_FILES)
I've tried adding the directories into the definitions (for the obj/ and inc/ directories)
OBJS = obj/shutil.o obj/parser.o obj/sshell.o
And modified every instance of %.o and %.c to obj/%.o and src/%.c
Everything should be okay as far as I can tell, but I get this error when I go to make from the root directory
gcc -Wall -Iinc -c -o obj/shutil.o src/shutil.c
src/shutil.c:8:23: fatal error: inc/shell.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
Can anyone find what I'm doing wrong here? I've been struggling with this for days.
Change -I. to -I${CURDIR}. The former adds the directory of the source being compiled to the include path list, which would be shell/src. The latter adds shell, this is probably what you want.
You may also take a look at Building multiple executables with similar rules for a micro non-recursive make framework.
Your compiler is looking for inc/shell.h, which it shouldn't. Generally, no build system dependent path should be in the source file, but the details of the build system should rather be defined via compiler flags.
That is, your source file src/shutil.c should look like:
#include "shell.h"
and your compiler invocation be the same, with the -Iinc passing the include path.
By keeping the paths out of the source files, implementation and installation of header files is much simpler.
Okay, it took some thorough frustration, but I got it now.
I changed my definitions at the top to include the file paths, as so:
OBJS = obj/shutil.o obj/parser.o obj/sshell.o
HEADER_FILES = inc/shell.h inc/parser.h
And it seems the key was -I./inc, instead of -Iinc as I expected.
obj/%.o: src/%.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -I./inc -c -o $# $<