How do I write a "selective" Makefile? - c

Question

noob question here.
I have a directory with a lot of .c files, they're basicely libc functions that I code myself as an exercice.
I write a little main() in these files to test the functions, and I want to write a Makefile that allow me to compile only the file I want to test, for exemple:
make memset.c
And get only the executable of the code wrote in memset.c.
I tried to do something like this:
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
all : %.o
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $<
%.o : %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -c -o $#
But obviously it doens't work. I don't what to put in place of the "all".
I know it's very basic, but I didn't manage to do it, and I did research but didn't find an answer to this specific question.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

If you do make -n -p you get a dump of all of the built-in rules in make. In GNU Make 4.1, this includes:
%: %.o
# recipe to execute (built-in):
$(LINK.o) $^ $(LOADLIBES) $(LDLIBS) -o $#
So you might just needs a % in your makefile where you currently have all.
You also might find that you don't need those rules which are already built in. Suppose you have three C files, each with a main() as you specify: abs.c, div.c and fmax.c. Your Makefile needs to be no more than two lines:
CFLAGS = -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
all: abs div fmax
which would then allow you to do make abs to make the abs executable, and make all to make them all.

Answer 2

You can define static pattern rules to build the object files and the executables and then invoke make with the name of the executable you want as the goal:
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
SRC := $(wildcard *.c)
OBJ := $(patsubst %.c,%.o,$(SRC))
EXE := $(patsubst %.c,%,$(SRC))
.PHONY: all obj
all: $(EXE)
obj: $(OBJ)
$(EXE): %: %.o
$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $< -o $#
$(OBJ): %.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -c -o $#
.PHONY: clean
clean:
rm -f $(OBJ) $(EXE)
Then:
$ make memset.o
builds only memset.o,
$ make memset
builds only memset (and memset.o if needed),
$ make obj
builds all object files,
$ make # or make all
builds all executables (and object files if needed), and
$ make clean
deletes all executables and object files.

Answer 3

With wildcard, you can achieve what you want.
Note that if each program depends on only one .c file, you don't need %.o rules:
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
SRC := $(wildcard *.c)
EXEC = $(SRC:%.c=%)
all: $(EXEC)
%: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -o $# $(LDFLAGS)
And just invoke this way for instance:
make memset

Answer 4

You already have most you to compile the executable selectively:
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
%.o : %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -c -o $#
% : %.o
$(CC) $(LDLAGS) $< -o $#
Then you just need to call make with the target you want, the executable:
make select
If you have several sets of executable with different flags, you can use:
EX0 = drink clean
${EXE0}: % : %.o
$(CC) $(LDLAGS) -lwater $< -o $#
EX1 = burn melt
{EX1}: % : %.o
$(CC) $(LDLAGS) -lfire $< -o $#