Managing Projects with GNU Make (Nutshell Handbooks)
Robert Mecklenburg
Language: English
Pages: 302
ISBN: 0596006101
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The utility simply known as make is one of the most enduring features of both Unix and other operating systems. First invented in the 1970s, make still turns up to this day as the central engine in most programming projects; it even builds the Linux kernel. In the third edition of the classic Managing Projects with GNU make, readers will learn why this utility continues to hold its top position in project build software, despite many younger competitors.The premise behind make is simple: after you change source files and want to rebuild your program or other output files, make checks timestamps to see what has changed and rebuilds just what you need, without wasting time rebuilding other files. But on top of this simple principle, make layers a rich collection of options that lets you manipulate multiple directories, build different versions of programs for different platforms, and customize your builds in other ways.This edition focuses on the GNU version of make, which has deservedly become the industry standard. GNU make contains powerful extensions that are explored in this book. It is also popular because it is free software and provides a version for almost every platform, including a version for Microsoft Windows as part of the free Cygwin project. Managing Projects with GNU make, 3rd Edition provides guidelines on meeting the needs of large, modern projects. Also added are a number of interesting advanced topics such as portability, parallelism, and use with Java.Robert Mecklenburg, author of the third edition, has used make for decades with a variety of platforms and languages. In this book he zealously lays forth how to get your builds to be as efficient as possible, reduce maintenance, avoid errors, and thoroughly understand what make is doing. Chapters on C++ and Java provide makefile entries optimized for projects in those languages. The author even includes a discussion of the makefile used to build the book.
marked with the silent modifier (@). The option is supposed to suppress all command execution. While this may be true in one sense, practically speaking, you must take care. While make will not execute command scripts, it will evaluate shell function calls that occur within an immediate context. For instance: REQUIRED_DIRS = ... _MKDIRS := $(shell for d in $(REQUIRED_DIRS); \ do \ [[ -d $$d ]] || mkdir -p $$d; \ done) $(objects) : $(sources) As we've seen before, the purpose of the
temporary files. .SECONDARY Prerequisites of this special target are treated as intermediate files but are never automatically deleted. The most common use of .SECONDARY is to mark object files stored in libraries. Normally these object files will be deleted as soon as they are added to an archive. Sometimes it is more convenient during development to keep these object files, but still use the make support for updating archives. .PRECIOUS When make is interrupted during execution, it may
variable, except that when it is used in the context of a command script, each line of the macro has a tab prepended to the line. An example use is: $(UI_JAR): $(UI_CLASSES) $(create-jar) Notice we've added an @ character in front of our echo command. Command lines prefixed with an @ character are not echoed by make when the command is executed. When we run make, therefore, it doesn't print the echo command, just the output of that command. If the @ prefix is used within a macro, the prefix
GCC_HOME := /usr/bin endif OUTPUT_DIR := $(OUTPUT_ROOT)/work/binaries CC := $(GCC_HOME)/gcc This style results in a makefile in which most programs are invoked via make variables. Until you get used to it, this can make the makefile a little harder to read. However, variables are often more convenient to use in the makefile anyway, because they can be considerably shorter than the literal program name, particularly when full paths are used. The same technique can be used to manage
not always minimize the time it takes to build a system. For Java in particular, full dependency checking and minimizing the number of files compiled does not appear to be necessary for normal program development. Setting CLASSPATH One of the most important issues when developing software with Java is setting the CLASSPATH variable correctly. This variable determines which code is loaded when a class reference is resolved. To compile a Java application correctly, the makefile must