Makefile Names (GNU make)
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3.2 What Name to Give Your Makefile
By default, when make
looks for the makefile, it tries the following names, in order: GNUmakefile
, makefile
and Makefile
.
Normally you should call your makefile either makefile
or Makefile
. (We recommend Makefile
because it appears prominently near the beginning of a directory listing, right near other important files such as README
.) The first name checked, GNUmakefile
, is not recommended for most makefiles. You should use this name if you have a makefile that is specific to GNU make
, and will not be understood by other versions of make
. Other make
programs look for makefile
and Makefile
, but not GNUmakefile
.
If make
finds none of these names, it does not use any makefile. Then you must specify a goal with a command argument, and make
will attempt to figure out how to remake it using only its built-in implicit rules. See Using Implicit Rules.
If you want to use a nonstandard name for your makefile, you can specify the makefile name with the ‘-f
’ or ‘--file
’ option. The arguments ‘-f name
’ /@w or ‘--file=name
’ /@w tell make
to read the file name
as the makefile. If you use more than one ‘-f
’ or ‘--file
’ option, you can specify several makefiles. All the makefiles are effectively concatenated in the order specified. The default makefile names GNUmakefile
, makefile
and Makefile
are not checked automatically if you specify ‘-f
’ or ‘--file
’.
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