3 ms·

I've been writing Makefiles regularly for maybe 15 years and I always end up on this page every time I need to write a new one: https://www.gnu.org/software/mak

by simias 9y ago

I've been writing Makefiles regularly for maybe 15 years and I always end up on this page every time I need to write a new one: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Automatic-Variables.html https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Automatic... $< $> $* $^ ... Not particularly explicit. You also have the very useful substitution rules, like $(SRC:.c=.o) which are probably more arcane than they ought to be. You can make similar complaints about POSIX shell syntax but at least the shell has the excuse of being used interactively so it makes sense to save on the typing I suppose. That's my major qualm with it however, the rest of the syntax is mostly straightforward in my opinion, at least for basic Makefiles.

cat199 9y ago
give pmake a shot sometime.. the syntax/semantics are much more 'shell-like' imho and some things are just much more possible.. (e.g. looping rather than recursive calls to function definitions) manual: ('make' on a bsd is PMake) https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=make&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-RELEASE+and+Ports&arch=default&format=html https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=make&apropos=0&sek... but most linux flavors have a package somewhere..
majewsky 9y ago
> $(SRC:.c=.o) I use $(patsubst %.c,%.o,$(SRC)) instead, which I find easier to remember.
- simias 9y ago
  Isn't that a GNU extension? Here's an other problem right there, figure out which dialect of Make you're using and their various quirks and extensions.
  - wbkang 9y ago
    I think you can compile gmake for most platforms.