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53 [sw][linux][build][makefile][make] makefile tutorials

Tip 1

Makefiles absolutely do allow for indented if statements, or rather indented conditionals to be more precise. What they don't allow for - at least out of the box - are tabbed conditionals. This is because, by default, Make interprets tabs as especially meaningful characters. Almost any line beginning with a tab character is interpreted to be part of a recipe. Therefore, any line that is not intended to be part of a recipe - such as conditionals - should not begin with a tab.

Comments

konosubakonoakua · 2025-07-22T08:57:55Z

  • https://clarkgrubb.com/makefile-style-guide
  • https://makefiletutorial.com/

konosubakonoakua · 2025-07-22T09:48:44Z

# Thanks to Job Vranish (https://spin.atomicobject.com/2016/08/26/makefile-c-projects/)
TARGET_EXEC := final_program

BUILD_DIR := ./build
SRC_DIRS := ./src

# Find all the C and C++ files we want to compile
# Note the single quotes around the * expressions. The shell will incorrectly expand these otherwise, but we want to send the * directly to the find command.
SRCS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -name '*.cpp' -or -name '*.c' -or -name '*.s')

# Prepends BUILD_DIR and appends .o to every src file
# As an example, ./your_dir/hello.cpp turns into ./build/./your_dir/hello.cpp.o
OBJS := $(SRCS:%=$(BUILD_DIR)/%.o)

# String substitution (suffix version without %).
# As an example, ./build/hello.cpp.o turns into ./build/hello.cpp.d
DEPS := $(OBJS:.o=.d)

# Every folder in ./src will need to be passed to GCC so that it can find header files
INC_DIRS := $(shell find $(SRC_DIRS) -type d)
# Add a prefix to INC_DIRS. So moduleA would become -ImoduleA. GCC understands this -I flag
INC_FLAGS := $(addprefix -I,$(INC_DIRS))

# The -MMD and -MP flags together generate Makefiles for us!
# These files will have .d instead of .o as the output.
CPPFLAGS := $(INC_FLAGS) -MMD -MP

# The final build step.
$(BUILD_DIR)/$(TARGET_EXEC): $(OBJS)
    $(CXX) $(OBJS) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS)

# Build step for C source
$(BUILD_DIR)/%.c.o: %.c
    mkdir -p $(dir $@)
    $(CC) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $@

# Build step for C++ source
$(BUILD_DIR)/%.cpp.o: %.cpp
    mkdir -p $(dir $@)
    $(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -c $< -o $@


.PHONY: clean
clean:
    rm -r $(BUILD_DIR)

# Include the .d makefiles. The - at the front suppresses the errors of missing
# Makefiles. Initially, all the .d files will be missing, and we don't want those
# errors to show up.
-include $(DEPS)