Using a Makefile with C - c

So I have three files:
jarvismarch.c (includes "jarvismarchtools.h")
jarvismarchtools.c
jarvismarchtools.h
I would like to use a makefile to compile the aforementioned files. How would I go about this?

The typical minimal makefile looks like this:
OBJ = jarvismarch.o jarvismarchtools.o
all: $(OBJ)
$(CC) -o jarvismarch $(OBJ)
Taking the comment of asveikau into account and adding a clean target it becomes:
OBJ = jarvismarch.o jarvismarchtools.o
BIN = jarvismarch
CFLAGS = -Wall -pedantic -ansi
all: $(BIN)
$(BIN): $(OBJ)
$(CC) -o # $(OBJ)
clean:
rm -f $(OBJ) $(BIN)
(Windows users need to use .obj instead of .o)
I strongly recommend against using make. It might be simple at first, but once your project grows I highly recommend a more complete build tool like SCons, CMake or Boost.Build.

Assuming that you are trying to build jarvismarch.exe:
jarvismarch.exe : jarvismarch.o jarvismarchtools.o
$(CC) -o $# $^
The leading whitespace on the second line needs to be a TAB character.

Related

How can I improve this Makefile to optimize the usage of the SRC and BIN folders?

This is my first attempt at making a Makefile after having gone through several tutorials and the gnu make manual. The Makefile works and creates the .o, .a and .exe files in the BIN folder. However, I have have added src\ and bin\ prefixes to all files. I know there must be a better way of addressing folder issues while using Makefiles. Only problem is, I am unable to figure it out after hours of editing and trying out different things, based on the tutorials. I find GNU make manual too overwhelming at this stage of my learning curve.
I am using MinGW GCC toolchain on Windows 7. I have copied mingw32-make.exe to make.exe for the purpose of trying out the tutorials and exampples I have been going through.
I would really appreciate any help on the subject. Thank you.
My Makefile is as follows:
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -O3 -Wall -c
BIN = bin/
LDFLAGS = -L$(BIN) -lmyLib
all: test.exe
test.exe: test.o libmyLib.a
gcc bin\test.o -o bin\test.exe $(LDFLAGS)
test.o: src\test.c src\myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o bin\test.o src\test.c
libmyLib.a: myLib.o
ar rcs bin\libmyLib.a bin\myLib.o
myLib.o: src\test.c src\myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o bin\myLib.o src\myLib.c
clean:
del bin\*.* /Q
First, there are some issues with your Makefile, even if it apparently works. When you write:
myLib.o: src\test.c src\myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o bin\myLib.o src\myLib.c
you are lying to make:
You tell it that the result of the rule is myLib.o while it is bin\myLib.o, that is, a different file.
You tell make that myLib.o depends on src\test.c while it in fact depends on src\myLib.c.
Same with your other rules as in:
libmyLib.a: myLib.o
ar rcs bin\libmyLib.a bin\myLib.o
You tell make that the rule shall be executed if myLib.o is newer than libmyLib.a while the real prerequisite is bin\myLib.o and the real target is bin\libmyLib.a.
By doing so you totally prevent make from doing what it is supposed to do: decide if a recipe must be executed or not, depending on the last modification times of target files and prerequisite files. Give it a try: run make twice and you'll see that it uselessly redoes what it did already. Never, never lie to make.
Second, you can improve your Makefile by using several advanced features like automatic ($#, $<, $^), standard (LDLIBS, AR, ARFLAGS) and regular (BIN, SRC) make variables. Here is an example of what you could try, after fixing the above mentioned issues and better using variables (plus adding the missing -I gcc option, and declaring all and clean as phony because these targets are not real files and we do not want to lie to make):
BIN = bin
SRC = src
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -O3 -Wall -c -I$(SRC)
LDFLAGS = -L$(BIN)
LDLIBS = -lmyLib
AR = ar
ARFLAGS = rcs
.PHONY: all clean
all: $(BIN)/test.exe
$(BIN)/test.exe: $(BIN)/test.o $(BIN)/libmyLib.a
$(CC) $< -o $# $(LDFLAGS) $(LDLIBS)
$(BIN)/test.o: $(SRC)/test.c $(SRC)/myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
$(BIN)/libmyLib.a: $(BIN)/myLib.o
$(AR) $(ARFLAGS) $# $^
$(BIN)/myLib.o: $(SRC)/myLib.c $(SRC)/myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
clean:
del $(BIN)\*.* /Q
Now, all non-phony targets and prerequisites are regular files, the ones that are really involved in the rules. Again, give it a try and you'll see that make rebuilds only what is out of date and thus needs to be rebuilt.
If you want to get rid of the $(SRC)/ prefix you can use the vpath directive that tells make where to look for source files (I insist on source, many people try to use it for target files, this is not what it is intended for):
vpath %.h $(SRC)
vpath %.c $(SRC)
And then:
$(BIN)/test.o: test.c myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
$(BIN)/myLib.o: myLib.c myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
Note: you could also use the VPATH variable instead of the vpath directive.
Pattern rules are used to factor similar rules, like, for instance, your compilation rules that differ only by the names of the source file and object file:
$(BIN)/%.o: %.c myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
All in all:
BIN = bin
SRC = src
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -O3 -Wall -c -I$(SRC)
LDFLAGS = -L$(BIN)
LDLIBS = -lmyLib
AR = ar
ARFLAGS = rcs
vpath %.h $(SRC)
vpath %.c $(SRC)
.PHONY: all clean
all: $(BIN)/test.exe
$(BIN)/test.exe: $(BIN)/test.o $(BIN)/libmyLib.a
$(CC) $< -o $# $(LDFLAGS) $(LDLIBS)
$(BIN)/%.o: %.c myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
$(BIN)/libmyLib.a: $(BIN)/myLib.o
$(AR) $(ARFLAGS) $# $^
clean:
del $(BIN)\*.* /Q
Finally, if you really want to avoid the $(BIN)/ prefix in your rules you will have to move to the $(BIN) directory and call make from there. You can leave the Makefile in the main directory and use the -f ../Makefile option, if you wish.
But of course this is less convenient that just typing make [goals] from the main directory. There are ways to let make test from where it has been called, and if it is not from the build directory, re-call itself with the -C and -f options such that it does its job from the build directory. But it is probably a bit too complicated if you are new to make.
If you are however interested have a look at this post that covers this topic (and more). If we simplify as much as possible what the post suggests and specialize it for your case, the final Makefile could be something like:
# here starts the black magic that makes it possible
.SUFFIXES:
BIN := bin
SRC := src
ifneq ($(notdir $(CURDIR)),$(BIN))
.PHONY: $(BIN) clean
$(BIN):
#$(MAKE) --no-print-directory -C $# -f ../Makefile SRC=$(CURDIR)/$(SRC) $(MAKECMDGOALS)
Makefile: ;
% :: $(BIN) ; :
clean:
del $(BIN)\*.* /Q
else
# here ends the black magic that makes it possible
# here starts the Makefile you would really like to write
CC := gcc
CFLAGS := -O3 -Wall -c -I$(SRC)
LDFLAGS := -L.
LDLIBS := -lmyLib
AR := ar
ARFLAGS := rcs
vpath %.h $(SRC)
vpath %.c $(SRC)
.PHONY: all
all: test.exe
test.exe: test.o libmyLib.a
$(CC) $< -o $# $(LDFLAGS) $(LDLIBS)
%.o: %.c myLib.h
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
libmyLib.a: myLib.o
$(AR) $(ARFLAGS) $# $^
# here ends the Makefile you would really like to write
# a last bit of black magic
endif
The Makefile you would really like to write is what you would write if your source files and target files were all in the source directory. No prefixes any more; vpath takes care of the $(SRC)/ prefix and $(BIN)/ is useless because when this part of the Makefile is used we are already inside $(BIN).
Note: I know nothing about Windows and its various command line interfaces so there are probably some things to adapt (backslashes instead of slashes for instance).

Compile multiple .c files with makefile

I would like to compile multiple .c files at once using a makefile.
I already made this:
CC= gcc
CPPFLAGS = -I.
CFLAGS = -W -Wall -ansi -pedantic
TARGET = test
RM = rm
OBJECTS = xxx.o yyy.o zzz.o
SOURCES = $(OBJECTS:.o =.c)
.PHONY: all clean
all: $(TAREGT)
clean:
$(RM) $(TARGET) $(OBJECTS)
$(TAREGT) : $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) $^ -o $#
$(OBJECTS) : $(SOURCES)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $^
I have no Idea why this does not work("nothing to be done for "all"). Someone has an idea?
This line is creating a circular dependency:
SOURCES = $(OBJECTS:.o =.c)
Try replacing it with this:
SOURCES = $(patsubst %.o,%.c,$(OBJECTS))
You forgot -o $# in your 'sources to objects' rule. Thus it doesn't create anything.
You have also spelling error - your $(TARGET) is 'test', but your 'all' rule depends on $(TAREGT) which is empty. You are also using $(TAREGT) as input to compile 'test'.
You don't need to specify $(SOURCES) or "sources to objects" rule - implicit rules will do the trick.
In fact your "sources to objects" rule is incorrect - it says that each object depends on all sources. If you want each object to depend on one source you should use either suffix rule, pattern rule or static pattern rule. Or just implicit rule.
$(OBJECTS) : $(SOURCES)
The above tells Make that every .o file depends on all sources, i.e. if you change one of your .c files Make will recompile all .o files. Not something what you really want, I guess. I'd rework this rule as follows:
$(foreach s,$(SOURCES),$(eval $(filter %$(basename $(notdir $s)).o,$(OBJECTS)): $s))
This will iterate every source in SOURCES, find corresponding .o file in OBJECTS and create correct rule: <obj>: <source>. It is that complicated to work in case of more complex mapping between source and object files. Say, when building object files in separate directory.
This cryptic code will work even for the following weird source to object file mapping:
SOURCES := a.cpp boo/b.c c.C
OBJECTS := foo/a.o bar/b.o c.o
$(foreach s,$(SOURCES),$(eval $(filter %$(basename $(notdir $s)).o,$(OBJECTS)): $s))
It will generate the following rules:
foo/a.o: a.cpp
bar/b.o: boo/b.c
c.o: c.C
Thank you guys for you help, it is working now
I just added some rules:
CC= gcc
CPPFLAGS = -I.
CFLAGS = -W -Wall -ansi -pedantic
TARGET = test
RM = rm
SOURCES = xxx.c yyy.c zzz.c
OBJECTS = $(SOURCES:.c=.o)
.PHONY: all clean
all: $(TARGET)
clean:
$(RM) $(TARGET) $(OBJECTS)
$(TARGET) : $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) $^ -o $#
%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $<

I need some assistance with Makefile in my project

I'm trying to make a Makefile but I'm having some problems
first I have
2 source files: ~/main.c ~/lib/library.c
1 header file: ~/include/library.h
main.c and library.c both share the same header file library.h
# Compiler options
CC = gcc
INC = -I../include
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -c $(INC)
LIB = -L../lib
LFLAGS = -Wall -g $(LIB)
# Dependencies
LIBS = -libmylib
OBJS = main.o
SRCS = $(OBJS:.o=.c)
EXEC = a.out
# Other rules
RM = rm -rf
TAGS = tags
BAK = Makefile.bak
all: $(EXEC)
#echo ------------------------ Compile Complete ----------------------------
.PHONY: clean depend
$(EXEC): $(OBJS)
$(CC) $(LFLAGS) -o $# $^ $(LIBS)
.c.o:
$(CC) $(INC) -M $^
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $# $<
clean:
$(RM) *.o *~ $(EXEC) $(TAGS) $(BAK)
depend: $(SRCS)
makedepend $(INC) $^
it keeps saying that I it can't make a rule out of library.o
plus I have another question
I acknowledge the fact that when Makefile comes in to action after calling 'make',
and subsequently go to the line .c.o or %c: %o(in GNU enhanced version) and make
.o files. but why doesn't it also call clean and depend automatically?
I've edited some things from the previous version of Makefile
this time, (well pretty similar to the previous problem) even though I
clarified the library path(-I../lib),
the Makefile cannot find the archive file (which I created as libmylib.a in ../lib dir)
now it's driving me crazy
but why doesn't it also call clean and depend automatically?
Because make only builds the target you tell it. If you don't specify one, the first target is built, which in many cases, such as yours, is the 'all' target.

make file, Is this look ok?

all: run
run: test.o list.o matrix.o smatrix.o
gcc test.o list.o matrix.o smatrix.o -o matrix-mul
list.o: list.c list.h
gcc -g -c list.c
matrix.o: matrix.c matrix.h
gcc -g -std=c99 -c -o matrix.o matrix.c
smatrix.o: smatrix.c smatrix.h
gcc -g -c -o smatrix.o smatrix.c
test.o: test.c test.h
gcc -g -c test.c
I was having lots of problems to make a makefile and I finally got this working. And I just want to make sure these are ok (not just for making program running but in term of a good make file)
One question is that why do matrix.o and smatrix.o have .o files in the line gcc -g -c ... where as list.o and test.o don't have that line..
I had to add -std=c99 because I was getting some weird for loop error but still don't understand why I need to put matrix.o in the line..
The file is OK-ish. It is not very easily maintainable.
This website has a really good tutorial on how to make nice makefiles:
http://mrbook.org/blog/tutorials/make/
Especially look at the last example:
CC=g++
CFLAGS=-c -Wall
LDFLAGS=
SOURCES=main.cpp hello.cpp factorial.cpp
OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:.cpp=.o)
EXECUTABLE=hello
all: $(SOURCES) $(EXECUTABLE)
$(EXECUTABLE): $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) -o $#
.cpp.o:
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -o $#
This should show you how to enhance maintainability (add extra files to SOURCES, and the rest is done automatically.
The below file supports make all make depend and make clean - you only need to change the first lines. Remember to make depend if you change includes in any file.
TARGET:=matrix-mul
SOURCES:=test.c list.c matrix.c smatrix.c
OBJECTS:=$(SOURCES:%.c=%.o)
CC=gcc
CFLAGS=-g -std=c99 -Wall
LD=gcc
LDFLAGS=
# First target - simply say that we want to produce matrix-mul
all: $(TARGET)
# To create the target we need all .o files, and we link with LD/LDFLAGS
# $# is the file we're making, aka matrix-mul
$(TARGET): $(OBJECTS)
$(LD) -o $# $(OBJECTS) $(LDFLAGS)
#Creating a .o from a .c
# $< is the c file, $# is the corresponding .o file
.c.o:
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
# Regenerate dependencies
depend:
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $(SOURCES) > .depend
# Remove produced files
clean:
rm -rf $(OBJECTS) $(TARGET) .depend
# If there's no dependency file, create it
.depend: depend
# Include the autogenerated dependency file
include .depend
EDIT: If you want this even more generic, you can replace the SOURCE:= line with:
SOURCES:=$(wildcard *.c)
This makefile will then simply build TARGET from all .c files in the current directory.
One thing I would highly suggest here would be to add a clean target that deletes all your intermediate files (probably all the .o files), like so:
clean:
rm *.o
For extra credit, put all your *.o files in a make variable, and use that variable as the target of the run rule, and after the rm command above.
The reason I want you to do this is for debugging purposes. It could be that you have one of the above rules wrong, but since you already built all your .o files once, it is just picking up an old one every time. If you do a make clean before your build, it will catch that.

How do I make a simple makefile for gcc on Linux?

I have three files: program.c, program.h and headers.h.
program.c includes program.h and headers.h.
I need to compile this on Linux using gcc compiler. I'm not sure how to do this. Netbeans created one for me, but it's empty.
Interesting, I didn't know make would default to using the C compiler given rules regarding source files.
Anyway, a simple solution that demonstrates simple Makefile concepts would be:
HEADERS = program.h headers.h
default: program
program.o: program.c $(HEADERS)
gcc -c program.c -o program.o
program: program.o
gcc program.o -o program
clean:
-rm -f program.o
-rm -f program
(bear in mind that make requires tab instead of space indentation, so be sure to fix that when copying)
However, to support more C files, you'd have to make new rules for each of them. Thus, to improve:
HEADERS = program.h headers.h
OBJECTS = program.o
default: program
%.o: %.c $(HEADERS)
gcc -c $< -o $#
program: $(OBJECTS)
gcc $(OBJECTS) -o $#
clean:
-rm -f $(OBJECTS)
-rm -f program
I tried to make this as simple as possible by omitting variables like $(CC) and $(CFLAGS) that are usually seen in makefiles. If you're interested in figuring that out, I hope I've given you a good start on that.
Here's the Makefile I like to use for C source. Feel free to use it:
TARGET = prog
LIBS = -lm
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -g -Wall
.PHONY: default all clean
default: $(TARGET)
all: default
OBJECTS = $(patsubst %.c, %.o, $(wildcard *.c))
HEADERS = $(wildcard *.h)
%.o: %.c $(HEADERS)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
.PRECIOUS: $(TARGET) $(OBJECTS)
$(TARGET): $(OBJECTS)
$(CC) $(OBJECTS) -Wall $(LIBS) -o $#
clean:
-rm -f *.o
-rm -f $(TARGET)
It uses the wildcard and patsubst features of the make utility to automatically include .c and .h files in the current directory, meaning when you add new code files to your directory, you won't have to update the Makefile. However, if you want to change the name of the generated executable, libraries, or compiler flags, you can just modify the variables.
In either case, don't use autoconf, please. I'm begging you! :)
For example this simple Makefile should be sufficient:
CC=gcc
CFLAGS=-Wall
all: program
program: program.o
program.o: program.c program.h headers.h
clean:
rm -f program program.o
run: program
./program
Note there must be <tab> on the next line after clean and run, not spaces.
UPDATE Comments below applied
all: program
program.o: program.h headers.h
is enough. the rest is implicit
The simplest make file can be
all : test
test : test.o
gcc -o test test.o
test.o : test.c
gcc -c test.c
clean :
rm test *.o
Depending on the number of headers and your development habits, you may want to investigate gccmakedep. This program examines your current directory and adds to the end of the makefile the header dependencies for each .c/cpp file. This is overkill when you have 2 headers and one program file. However, if you have 5+ little test programs and you are editing one of 10 headers, you can then trust make to rebuild exactly those programs which were changed by your modifications.

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