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make
A makefile that says how to recompile a program can be used in more
than one way. The simplest use is to recompile every file that is out
of date. Usually, makefiles are written so that if you run
make
with no arguments, it does just that.
But you might want to update only some of the files; you might want to use a different compiler or different compiler options; you might want just to find out which files are out of date without changing them.
By giving arguments when you run make
, you can do any of these
things and many others.
The exit status of make
is always one of three values:
0
make
is successful.2
make
encounters any errors. It will print messages describing the particular errors.1
-q
’ flag and make
determines that some target is not already up to date. See Instead of Executing Recipes.• Makefile Arguments | How to specify which makefile to use. | |
• Goals | How to use goal arguments to specify which
parts of the makefile to use. | |
• Instead of Execution | How to use mode flags to specify what
kind of thing to do with the recipes in the makefile other than simply execute them. | |
• Avoiding Compilation | How to avoid recompiling certain files. | |
• Overriding | How to override a variable to specify
an alternate compiler and other things. | |
• Testing | How to proceed past some errors, to
test compilation. | |
• Options Summary | Summary of Options |
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