Make

cli

make [-f Makefile] [VAR="foo"] [OPTIONS] [TARGETS]

bare run of "make", defaults to running the first target found
you can give more than 1 target

-f	–(make)file	file
-o	–old-file	target	never remake TARGET
-k	–keep-going		keep on errors
-s	–silent		silent command print
-i	–ignore-errors
-e	–environment-overrides		env>make vars
-B	–always-make		make ALL targets
-j	–jobs	n_jobs	parallel jobs
-n	–dry-run
-t	–touch		touch targets, without running
-d	–debug	[abvijmn]	print debug
	–warn-undefined-variables		when referenced
-r	–no-builtin-rules
-R	–no-builtin-variables

language

defines a dependency tree (DAG) of rules (aka recipe)
- between his structure and dependencies
- made of targets (the vertices)
- final exe is the root vertex
use include MAKEFILE to include another Makefile

target / output

targets without deps are human made ones
order does not matter
- but if multiple % patterns match, will use the last one matched (deps stills stacked?)
multiple targets: for same dependencies
recommended phony ones: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Standard-Targets.html
- all, help, clean, check, dist, run, deps, serve, deploy
- test: make it depend of the final binary
- (un)install: use PREFIX=/usr/local and DESTDIR

special targets

.ONESHELL:	runs all commands the same shell
.POSIX:	should be the first line
.SUFFIXES:	disable all default inference rules
.DELETE_ON_ERROR:	will delete the target if a command fails (NO BY DEFAULT)
.PHONY:	make target not a regular target file

default targets

%:     ; $(CC)  $*.o -o $*
%.c:   ; $(CC)  -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS)
%.cpp: ; $(CXX) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS)
%.o:   ; $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) n.o $(LOADLIBES) $(DLIBS)

prerequisites / dependency

can be split into different targets with the same name (?

*	wildcard, filesystem matches, use it with $(wildcard)
%	wildcard

commands / actions

uses /bin/sh by default
TAB indented
use (\) for long ones
use (;) to make one command of many
each one runs on his own shell
whole makefile fails if a command returns 1
prefixes

- ignore errors

@ not print the command, use it to add indent comments

+ run even on no-exec mode

variables / macros

are ALWAYS strings
undefined variables are treated as empty strings (see –warn-undefined-variables)
order of precedence (see override)
1. cli
2. makefile
3. environment
4. predefined

referencing

$a            # for length=1 vars
$(ab)         # for length>1 vars
${ab}         # "
$(ab:.cpp=.o) # string replace

assignments

ONLY evaluated when they are used

=	dynamic/macro, evaluated each time is used
:=	one time, evaluated procedurally
::=	"
?=	safe, only if undefined
+=	appends with a space
!=	exec shell command and assign it

implicit / predefined / default

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Implicit-Variables.html

CC	For compiler and compiler flags
CXX	"
CFLAGS	"
CPPFLAGS
CXXFLAGS
LDFLAGS	for flags passed to compiler when linking
LDLIBS	For flags about libraries when linking
SHELL	eg: "bash"
MAKE_FLAGS
MAKEFILE_LIST
.SHELLFLAGS	eg: "-eu -o pipefail -c"
.RECIPEPREFIX	use instead of tabs
.DEFAULT_GOAL	default target

magic / automatic variables

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Automatic-Variables.html

$@	target's name (always one)
$(@D)	target's dir(name)
$(@F)	target's base(name)
$<	1st prerequisite
$(<D)	1st prerequisite's dir(name)
$(<F)	1st prerequisite's base(name)
$^	all prerequisites
$+	all prerequisites, with dups
$?	new prerequisites (than the target)
$*	what "%" wildcard matched
$$	literal "$"
$%	target's name, WHEN (ar)chive member ?
$¦	? order-only prerequisites ?

functions

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Functions.html
do NOT add spaces between arguments, functions will see it

shell

cmd

exec and replaces \n with space

strings

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Text-Functions.html

word	n,text	"n"th word in in text
wordlist	n,m,text	text word-slicing from "n" to "m"
words	text	number of words
firstword	text
lastword	text
findstring	needle,text	returns "needle" or "" if not in text
filter	pat%..,text	remove words that match "pat%"
filter-out	pat%..,text	remove words that do NOT match "pat%"
sort	text	sort words, remove dups
strip	text	trim and squash whitespaces
subst	from,to,text	substitute literal words
patsubst	pat,repl,text	substitute pattern% words, text can use *

filenames

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/File-Name-Functions.html

join	list,list	zipWith (<>)
wildcard	glob*Path	filesystem match, space separated if many
(not)dir	names..	like shell's basename/dirname
abspath	names..	absolute path, might not exist, no follow links
realpath	names..	absolute path, must exist
basename	names..	removes suffix/extension
suffix	names..	extract suffix
addsuffix	suffix,names..
addprefix	prefix,names..

control flow

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Conditional-Syntax.html

if(n)def $(CC)
if(n)eq ($(CC),gcc)
else # if...
endif

snippets

autogenerated help target

help: # https://blog.ovhcloud.com/pimp-my-makefile/
        @grep '^[^.#]\+:\s\+.*#' Makefile | \
        sed "s/\(.\+\):\s*\(.*\) #\s*\(.*\)/`printf "3[93m"``printf "3[0m"`      []/" | \
        expand -t20
help: # https://lobste.rs/s/7svvkz/using_bsd_make#c_mar0yk
        @awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*##"; printf "\nUsage:\n  make \033[36m\033[0m\n"} /^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+:.*?##/ { printf "  \033[36m%-15s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2 } /^##@/ { printf "\n\033[1m%s\033[0m\n", substr($$0, 5) } ' $(MAKEFILE_LIST)

set bash pipefail, use either of these

SHELL = /bin/bash -o pipefail
.SHELLFLAGS = -eu -o pipefail -c

gotchas

no support for filenames with spaces
= assignment is perpetually evaluated
$ needs to be always escaped with $$ to be sent to commands as such
\t for indentation, NOT spaces

tools

linter	checkmake unmake
visualizer	MakefileViz makefile2graph makefile-graph
TAP output	make2tap
library	makext

trivia

Why the tab in column 1?

"Yacc was new, Lex was brand new. I hadn't tried either, so I figured
this would be a good excuse to learn. After getting myself snarled up
with my first stab at Lex, I just did something simple with the
pattern newline-tab. It worked, it stayed. And then a few weeks later
I had a user population of about a dozen, most of them friends, and I
didn't want to screw up my embedded base. The rest, sadly, is
history."

-- Stuart Feldman, from "The Art of Unix Programming"

wiki	english wikibooks
gnu	home docs
bsd	man
posix	home
fork	https://justine.lol/make/
alternatives	just Task Snakemake

-	ignore errors
@	not print the command, use it to add indent comments
+	run even on no-exec mode