Linux Makefile

[Xiomar]

The make command knows how to make some files for example, it will create foo from foo.c or toto.cc. In these cases, a Makefile is not even necessary. However, most of the time, we need a Makefile: either to indicate the dependencies between different files, or because the commands to start the compilation are not very standard. Here's an example Makefile. The first line contains the name of "goal" followed by a colon. The following lines (which must begin with a tab --- make is really archaic software) contain commands to start to achieve that goal. To launch the compilation, one would type make or make all (the name all nothing special: it's just the first goal that appears in the file).

all:
         latex 1
         dvips-E-o 1.ps 1.dvi

It may indicate the dependency between the different files: In the following example, we want to get a file 1.ps, which comes from a file 1.dvi who comes from a file 1.tex. The make command will compare the dates of last modification of these files (if they exist) and thus judge whether it is necessary to recreate some or all of these files.

all: 1.ps

 1.ps: 1.dvi
         dvips-E-o 1.ps 1.dvi

 1.dvi: 1.tex
         latex 1

[Xiomar]

Orders must be on one line. If you need more lines, we will put a backslash at the end. (Find a good example ...)

all:
         trial.tex latex, bibtex trial; trial.tex latex, latex trial.tex; dvips-o trial.ps trial.dvi

all:
         Latex trial.tex; \
         bibtex trial; \
         Latex trial.tex; \
         Latex trial.tex; \
         dvips-o trial.ps trial.dvi

Because the $ character is interpreted by make, we must double if we want it to be by the shell. (We see later comments cleaner rewrite this example.)

all:
         Latex trial.tex
         bibtex trial
         Latex trial.tex
         Latex trial.tex
         dvips-o trial.ps trial.dvi

[Xiomar]

Using variables

It defines and uses a variable like that. do not forget the parentheses.

TEX = 1.tex 
 LATEX = latex-interaction = nonstopmode-shell-escape

 all: 
         $ (LATEX) $ (TEX)

You can use a variable in the definition of another variable.

MORE = A.tex B.tex
 TEX = 1.tex 2.tex 3.tex 4.tex $ (MORE

The following example is equivalent (but do not copy provided).

TEX = 1.tex 2.tex 3.tex 4.tex $ (MORE)
 MORE = A.tex B.tex

When make knows how to create a file from another without being told (eg, a *. o file from a *. c), we can still control its behavior using some variables.

CC = gcc
 CXX = g + +
 CPP = $ (CC)-E
 CFLAGS =-Wall-O2 -I/usr/X11R6/include 
 CXXFLAGS = 
 LDFLAGS =