I need some Makefile wizardry explained - c++

So I was following one of the Makefile by example tutorials (cause I'm fairly fresh) and thats how I ended up here.
files = src/main.cpp src/compiler.cpp
all: $(files)
%.cpp:
echo $#
And this for some reason produces this
echo src/compiler.cpp
src/compiler.cpp
echo all.cpp
all.cpp
g++ -c -o all.o all.cpp
cc1plus: fatal error: all.cpp: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [<builtin>: all.o] Error 1
I don't see any refrences to g++ at all and for some reason it's getting called. The idea here was to use it to compile all my stuff from /src to .o files in /obj then produce a binary. Any ideas on how to do that or explanations on how to not call g++ without even referencing it in the makefile is highly appreciated.

It's being called because you have created a target all, and you haven't given make any recipe to build that target. So, make looks through its built-in rules and it sees that it knows how to build a program x given a prerequisite x.cpp. Well, make knows how to build a all.cpp, because you provided a rule that tells it how to build any .cpp file.
So first it runs the rule to build all.cpp, then it runs its built-in rule to build a target all from that all.cpp (which doesn't exist because your rule that told make how to build %.cpp doesn't actually create that target).
If you don't actually want to build a target all, then you should declare it to be a phony target:
.PHONY: all

Related

can you create a c++ file from an .o object file with makefile?

What I'm trying to do is create a c++ file from an object file but I cannot figure out a way to do so.
INCLUDEDIR = ../headers
CXXFLAGS = -std=c++11 -I $(INCLUDEDIR) -Wall -Wfatal-errors -O2
all:primeFactors.o
primeFactors.o: primeFactors.cpp $(INCLUDEDIR)/primeFactors.h
g++ $(CXXFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
When I try to build this I get
make: *** No rule to make target 'primeFactors.cpp', needed by
'primeFactors.o'. Stop.
which I understand but when I take out the primeFactor.cpp argument I then get told there is nothing to be done with the make file. So is there a way to do this?
In general; no, you cannot do that. An object file (.o file) is the result of the code passing through the compiler front-end (to parse the language) the optimizer (to make it run fast) and the compiler back-end (to produce code that will run on your CPU).
This process is not reversible. You cannot go from compiled code back to source.
can you create a c++ file from an .o object file with makefile?
A makefile will allow you to do that only if you have an underlying tool to do it. make, which uses makefiles to do its job, does not have any built-in mechanisms to pull that off.
Your makefile has a rule for building primeFactors.o.
primeFactors.o: primeFactors.cpp $(INCLUDEDIR)/primeFactors.h
It says that primeFactors.cpp and $(INCLUDEDIR)/primeFactors.h are needed to build primeFactors.o. If you don't have those files, or no rules to build them, there is no way for make to build primeFactors.o.

How to use makedepend in a non-standard makefile name

I am trying to use makedepend in a makefile named Makefile_abc.
Normally when I have to build a target trg, I say
make -f Makefile_abc trg
and this works beautifully.
I have added following lines in this makefile.
dep:
makedepend main.c
Now, when I do,
make -f Makefile_abc dep
I get the error,
makedepend: error: [mM]akefile is not present
make: *** [depend] Error 1
If I rename my makefile as Makefile, then following command works fine,
make depend
So, I am looking for a way to use makedepend on non-standard makefile names.
This is a basic 'read the manual' question.
Looking at makedepend(1), you need -fMakefile_abc in the recipe for the target dep (optionally with a space between -f and Makefile_abc):
dep:
makedepend -fMakefile_abc main.c
To update the dependencies, you'd run:
$ make -f Makefile_abc dep
This would cause make to run:
makedepend -fMakefile_abc main.c
(Note that the 'standard' — most common — name for the target is depend rather than dep, so you'd normally run make -fMakefile_abc depend or, with a plain makefile file, make depend.)
If you're using GNU Make, you might also add another line to Makefile_abc:
.PHONY: dep # Or depend, depending…
This tells make that there won't be a file dep created by the rule.
You can often get information about how to run a command by using makedepend --help or makedepend -: — the first may (or may not) give a useful help message outlining options, and the second is very unlikely to be a valid option which should generate a 'usage' message that summarizes the options.

make not executing correct Makefile

I should preface this by saying I am very new to Makefiles.
I created the following Makefile:
all: tiling_graph.o
g++ -o tiling_graph tiling_graph.o -L/usr/local/lib -ligraph
I am trying to make sure that -ligraph is included. However, when I type "make", I get the following output: "c++ -c -o tiling_graph.o tiling_graph.cpp"
Why is it not using the Makefile that I created in the current directory? I have tried using "make -f Makefile" and "make --file=Makefile" but none of these are working.
Also, right after I first made the Makefile, it worked correctly. The output after typing make was
"g++ -o tiling_graph tiling_graph.o -L/usr/local/lib -ligraph"
I executed ./tiling_graph and it was successful.
Then I edited tiling_graph.cpp, ran make again, and the output was "c++ -c -o tiling_graph.o tiling_graph.cpp" and has been ever since.
I would really appreciate any help. Thanks!
A simple way to think about a make rule:
target: dependency list
commands to make the target
is that it is a recipe for making the file called target from the list of files in the dependency list. Since make can see the file system, it can tell whether any file in the dependency list is newer than the file named target, which is its signal for recreating target. After all, if none of the dependencies have changed, the target must be up-to-date.
Note that make knows quite a lot about how to build files. In particular, it has a lot of built-in "pattern" rules, so it knows, for example, how to make an object file (prog.o) from a C++ source file (prog.cpp) or from a C source file (prog.c) or many other things. So you only need to actually write a makefile when you have other requirements, like a library (and even then you could just add that to an environment variable, but the makefile is better).
Now, you don't actually want to build a file called all. You want to build a file called tiling_graph. So the correct make rule would be:
tiling_graph: tiling_graph.o
g++ -o tiling_graph tiling_graph.o -L/usr/local/lib -ligraph
Since make already knows how to create tiling_graph.o, it can actually figure out how to make tiling_graph from tiling_graph.cpp.
So where does this all come from? The usual way to use all is:
all: program1 program2 program3
which tells make that the all target requires program1, program2 and program3. So if you need to build all three of those programs, the all rule would let you just do one make command. Since there is no file named all, that's a "phony" target and (with gnu make, at least) it should be declared as a phony target:
all: tiling_graph
.PHONY: all
But you really don't need that if you just want to build one program.
When you just type make (as opposed to make target), make chooses the first target in the makefile. So if you put the thing you usually want to build first, you'll save some typing.

Why does this makefile work with make 3.81 but not 3.82?

I have a very simple makefile to build a static library that has worked fine for years with GNU make version 3.81 but fails with version 3.82.
I have read up on the issues with backward compatibility and those issues do not appear to apply. I've also checked several posts here, such as Makefile Syntax: Static library lib$(library).a($objects) and Makefile - to create a static library, but cannot find a solution.
Here's my makefile:
FILES = file1.cc file2.cc file3.cc
OBJ_FILES = $(FILES:.cc=.o)
libname.a: libname.a($(OBJ_FILES))
Under version 3.81 this compiles fine using built-in and implicit rules.
Sample output
g++ -c -o file1.o file1.cc
ar rv libname.a file1.o
ar: creating libname.a
a - file1.o
but with version 3.82 it fails with
*** No rule to make target `file1.o)'
I've looked at the output of make -d and version 3.82 fails with
No implicit rule found for `file1.o)'.
Finished prerequisites of target file `file1.o)'.
Must remake target `file1.o)'.
make: *** No rule to make target `file1.o)', needed by `libname'. Stop.
while version 3.81 continues without a hitch
Trying implicit prerequisite `file1.o'.
Looking for a rule with intermediate file `file1.o'.
<snip>
Found an implicit rule for `libname.a(file1.o)'.
What gives? Please help! Thanks!
file1.o)': looks like it somehow included the closing bracket ')' in the filename/string.
Try listing the object files explicitly like OBJ_FILES = file1.o file2. file3.o or use a different way to replace .cc with .o.

Cross compiling C++ project, Relocations in generic ELF (EM: 3)

I've been working on a c++ project for a while now, but would like to port it over to my arm processor. I already have all of my cross-compile tools (I'm using CodeSourcery) and thought I could just change my makefile to point to that compiler. It compiles fine using the default g++, but When try a make pointing to the cross-compiler I get relocation errors:
/home/oryan/CodeSourcery/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/4.5.2/../../../../arm-none-linux-gnueabi/bin/ld: ServerSocket.o: Relocations in generic ELF (EM: 3)
ServerSocket.o: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [simple_server] Error 1
It seems like I don't have a proper link set up or it's pointing to a wrong location. I'm not that familiar with makefiles and am probably missing something obvious. The makefile I've been using is from http://tldp.org/LDP/LG/issue74/tougher.html with the client side removed:
# Makefile for the socket programming example
#
simple_server_objects = ServerSocket.o Socket.o simple_server_main.o
all : simple_server
simple_server: $(simple_server_objects)
/home/matt/CodeSourcery/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-g++ -o simple_server $(simple_server_objects)
Socket: Socket.cpp
ServerSocket: ServerSocket.cpp
simple_server_main: simple_server_main.cpp
clean:
rm -f *.o simple_server
Right now I am manually compiling each file and it works great, but I'd like to further my understanding here.
Thanks!
The problem is you've set your makefile up to link with the new g++ but you haven't changed the compiler you're using to build the objects in the first place.
The easiest way to fix this is to set environment CXX to the next compiler, i.e.
export CXX=/home/matt/CodeSourcery/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-g++
or just set it for a given make by adding CXX=... to the command line.
You'll need to make clean first but you'll then use the correct compiler for both the compile and link.
You could also specify a new how-to-compile-C++ files rule in your makefile to specify the new compiler but the environment variable is easier:
.cc.o:
/home/.../g++ $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -c
The problem is because of these three rules:
Socket: Socket.cpp
ServerSocket: ServerSocket.cpp
simple_server_main: simple_server_main.cpp
First of all, the left-hand side of the rule should be the object file I guess, so should have the .o suffix.
The second problem, and most likely the root of your problem, is that there is no command to compile the source files, which means that make will use the default compiler and not your cross-compiler.