Forcing Orders in Makefile Dependencies - c

Question

I need some help writing a GNU makefile. I have a C program "main.c", which is dependent on the value of "CONSTANT" defined in the file "constants.h".
"main.c"
#include <stdio.h>
#include "constants.h"
void work(void)
{
int array[CONSTANT];
for (int i = 0; i < CONSTANT; i++) {
printf("%d\n", i);
}
}
int main(int argc, char const* argv[])
{
printf("constant=%d\n", CONSTANT);
work();
return 0;
}
"constant.h"
#ifndef CONSTANTS_H
#define CONSTANTS_H
#define CONSTANT 4
#endif
What I'm trying to do here is to compile the program with different values for "CONSTANT". For example, "out1" is compiled with "CONSTANT=1" and with "make all", I should be able to produce all the variants ("out1", "out2" and "out4").
The problem is that "a.o" required by "main.c" also depends on the value of "CONSTANT". So "a.o" must be compiled after "sed%". However, as far as I understand, there is no way in "make" to force orders in dependencies (I guess this is the whole point of using makefiles).
What is the recommended way to address this situation?
"Makefile"
CC= gcc
CFLAGS = -std=c99 -Wall
CONSTANTS = 1 2 4
targets = $(addprefix out, $(CONSTANTS))
seds = $(addprefix sed, $(CONSTANTS))
.PHONY: $(seds)
$(seds): sed%:
sed -i 's/define CONSTANT [0-9]*/define CONSTANT $*/g' constants.h
$(targets): out%: main.c sed% a.o
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< a.o -o $#
a.o: a.c constant.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< a.o -o $#
.PHONY: all
all : $(targets)
Note that I'm aware that I can rewrite "main.c" so that it takes a parameter from the comman line. In practice, many other files other than "main.c" depend on "CONSTANT", so I want to avoid rewriting all these files. I'm also aware that I can do something like "gcc -DCONSTANT=n main.c", but every file dependent on "CONSTANT" must be recompiled as well.
Related Questions
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Force order of dependencies in a Makefile

Answer 1

I'm ... aware that I can do something like "gcc -DCONSTANT=n main.c",
but every file dependent on "CONSTANT" must be recompiled as well.
This needn't be a hindrance if you have your makefile generate
the correct -DCONSTANT=n and distinct object file in every compilation recipe.
Here's an illustration:
constants.h
#ifndef CONSTANTS_H
#define CONSTANTS_H
#ifndef CONSTANT
#define CONSTANT 4
#endif
#endif
foo.c
#include "constants.h"
int foo = CONSTANT;
main.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include "constants.h"
extern int foo;
int main()
{
printf("%d\n",CONSTANT + foo);
return 0;
}
Makefile
CC := gcc
CFLAGS := -std=c99 -Wall
CONSTANTS = 1 2 4
TARGETS = $(addprefix out, $(CONSTANTS))
SRCS := main.c foo.c
define compile =
$(basename $(1))$(2).o: $(1) constants.h
$$(CC) -c -DCONSTANT=$(2) $$(CFLAGS) $$< -o $$#
endef
.PHONY: all clean
all : $(TARGETS)
$(foreach src,$(SRCS),\
$(foreach const,$(CONSTANTS),$(eval $(call compile,$(src),$(const)))))
out%: main%.o foo%.o
$(CC) $^ -o $#
clean:
rm -f $(TARGETS) *.o
This runs like:
$ make
gcc -c -DCONSTANT=1 -std=c99 -Wall main.c -o main1.o
gcc -c -DCONSTANT=1 -std=c99 -Wall foo.c -o foo1.o
gcc main1.o foo1.o -o out1
gcc -c -DCONSTANT=2 -std=c99 -Wall main.c -o main2.o
gcc -c -DCONSTANT=2 -std=c99 -Wall foo.c -o foo2.o
gcc main2.o foo2.o -o out2
gcc -c -DCONSTANT=4 -std=c99 -Wall main.c -o main4.o
gcc -c -DCONSTANT=4 -std=c99 -Wall foo.c -o foo4.o
gcc main4.o foo4.o -o out4
And the resulting programs run like:
$ for i in 1 2 4; do ./out$i; done
2
4
8