Makefile - Dependency generation - c++

I am trying to create a makefile that automatically compiles and links my .cpp files into an executable via .o files. What I can't get working is automated (or even manual) dependency generation. When i uncomment the below commented code, nothing is recompiled when i run make build. All i get is make: Nothing to be done for 'build'., even if x.h (or any .h file) has changed. I've been trying to learn from this question: Makefile, header dependencies, dmckee's answer, especially. Why isn't this makefile working?
Clarification: I can compile everything, but when I modify any header file, the .cpp files that depend on it aren't updated. So, if I for instance compile my entire source, then I change a #define in the header file, and then run make build, and I get Nothing to be done for 'build'. (when I have uncommented either commented chunks of the below code).
CC=gcc
CFLAGS=-O2 -Wall
LDFLAGS=-lSDL -lstdc++
SOURCES=$(wildcard *.cpp)
OBJECTS=$(patsubst %.cpp, obj/%.o,$(SOURCES))
TARGET=bin/test.bin
# Nothing happens when i uncomment the following. (automated attempt)
#depend: .depend
#
#.depend: $(SOURCES)
# rm -f ./.depend
# $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^ >> ./.depend;
#
#include .depend
# And nothing happens when i uncomment the following. x.cpp and x.h are files in my project. (manual attempt)
#x.o: x.cpp x.h
clean:
rm -f $(TARGET)
rm -f $(OBJECTS)
run: build
./$(TARGET)
build: $(TARGET)
$(TARGET): $(OBJECTS)
#mkdir -p $(#D)
$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) -o $#
obj/%.o: %.cpp
#mkdir -p $(#D)
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) $< -o $#

This may take a few iterations.
1) I can't reproduce your results from your first approach (and you must be clearer than "nothing happens"-- does Make actually produce no output?). This:
depend: .depend
.depend: $(SOURCES)
rm -f ./.depend
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^ >> ./.depend;
include .depend
seems to work as intended. I suggest you try $(info sources: $(SOURCES)) to verify that that variable contains the filenames you think it does.
2) I can't reproduce your results from your second approach (and you must be clearer than "nothing happens"-- does Make actually produce no output?). You tried x.o: x.cpp x.h when the first approach was commented out, is that right?
EDIT:
Let's concentrate on x.o. Does it contain #include "x.h"? When you uncomment the first section and make x.o, does Make produce (or modify) .depend? Is there a line in .depend that pertains to x.o, and if so what is it? If you then modify x.h and then make x.o, what does Make do?

You resolve only one kind of dependency with $(CC) -MM. There are various others like changed command options (e.g. -DDO_SOMETHING_ELSE), or a different set of symbols exported by a library. Traditional makes offer you lots of fun debugging inconsistent executables!
That's where makepp comes in. Dependencies are detected automatically. It not only rebuilds targets whenever any kind of dependency warrants this. It even chains everything together and builds what is needed from bottom up. I.e. if your linker has a -lmystuff option and you have a rule to build libmystuff.so or .a, that's all it takes, it will get built in time. Likewise you can include files that don't even exist yet — impossible with your solution.

Related

When do files in C++ with direct & indirect dependencies have to be recompiled and when is a new linking of the executable sufficient? [duplicate]

I have the following makefile that I use to build a program (a kernel, actually) that I'm working on. Its from scratch and I'm learning about the process, so its not perfect, but I think its powerful enough at this point for my level of experience writing makefiles.
AS = nasm
CC = gcc
LD = ld
TARGET = core
BUILD = build
SOURCES = source
INCLUDE = include
ASM = assembly
VPATH = $(SOURCES)
CFLAGS = -Wall -O -fstrength-reduce -fomit-frame-pointer -finline-functions \
-nostdinc -fno-builtin -I $(INCLUDE)
ASFLAGS = -f elf
#CFILES = core.c consoleio.c system.c
CFILES = $(foreach dir,$(SOURCES),$(notdir $(wildcard $(dir)/*.c)))
SFILES = assembly/start.asm
SOBJS = $(SFILES:.asm=.o)
COBJS = $(CFILES:.c=.o)
OBJS = $(SOBJS) $(COBJS)
build : $(TARGET).img
$(TARGET).img : $(TARGET).elf
c:/python26/python.exe concat.py stage1 stage2 pad.bin core.elf floppy.img
$(TARGET).elf : $(OBJS)
$(LD) -T link.ld -o $# $^
$(SOBJS) : $(SFILES)
$(AS) $(ASFLAGS) $< -o $#
%.o: %.c
#echo Compiling $<...
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
#Clean Script - Should clear out all .o files everywhere and all that.
clean:
-del *.img
-del *.o
-del assembly\*.o
-del core.elf
My main issue with this makefile is that when I modify a header file that one or more C files include, the C files aren't rebuilt. I can fix this quite easily by having all of my header files be dependencies for all of my C files, but that would effectively cause a complete rebuild of the project any time I changed/added a header file, which would not be very graceful.
What I want is for only the C files that include the header file I change to be rebuilt, and for the entire project to be linked again. I can do the linking by causing all header files to be dependencies of the target, but I cannot figure out how to make the C files be invalidated when their included header files are newer.
I've heard that GCC has some commands to make this possible (so the makefile can somehow figure out which files need to be rebuilt) but I can't for the life of me find an actual implementation example to look at. Can someone post a solution that will enable this behavior in a makefile?
EDIT: I should clarify, I'm familiar with the concept of putting the individual targets in and having each target.o require the header files. That requires me to be editing the makefile every time I include a header file somewhere, which is a bit of a pain. I'm looking for a solution that can derive the header file dependencies on its own, which I'm fairly certain I've seen in other projects.
As already pointed out elsewhere on this site, see this page:
Auto-Dependency Generation
In short, gcc can automatically create .d dependency files for you, which are mini makefile fragments containing the dependencies of the .c file you compiled.
Every time you change the .c file and compile it, the .d file will be updated.
Besides adding the -M flag to gcc, you'll need to include the .d files in the makefile (like Chris wrote above).
There are some more complicated issues in the page which are solved using sed, but you can ignore them and do a "make clean" to clear away the .d files whenever make complains about not being able to build a header file that no longer exists.
You could add a 'make depend' command as others have stated but why not get gcc to create dependencies and compile at the same time:
DEPS := $(COBJS:.o=.d)
-include $(DEPS)
%.o: %.c
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) -o $# $<
The '-MF' parameter specifies a file to store the dependencies in.
The dash at the start of '-include' tells Make to continue when the .d file doesn't exist (e.g. on first compilation).
Note there seems to be a bug in gcc regarding the -o option. If you set the object filename to say obj/_file__c.o then the generated _file_.d will still contain _file_.o, not obj/_file_c.o.
This is equivalent to Chris Dodd's answer, but uses a different naming convention (and coincidentally doesn't require the sed magic. Copied from a later duplicate.
If you are using a GNU compiler, the compiler can assemble a list of dependencies for you. Makefile fragment:
depend: .depend
.depend: $(SOURCES)
rm -f ./.depend
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^>>./.depend;
include .depend
There is also the tool makedepend, but I never liked it as much as gcc -MM
You'll have to make individual targets for each C file, and then list the header file as a dependency. You can still use your generic targets, and just place the .h dependencies afterwards, like so:
%.o: %.c
#echo Compiling $<...
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
foo.c: bar.h
# And so on...
Basically, you need to dynamically create the makefile rules to rebuild the object files when the header files change. If you use gcc and gnumake, this is fairly easy; just put something like:
$(OBJDIR)/%.d: %.c
$(CC) -MM -MG $(CPPFLAGS) $< | sed -e 's,^\([^:]*\)\.o[ ]*:,$(#D)/\1.o $(#D)/\1.d:,' >$#
ifneq ($(MAKECMDGOALS),clean)
include $(SRCS:%.c=$(OBJDIR)/%.d)
endif
in your makefile.
Over and above what #mipadi said, you can also explore the use of the '-M' option to generate a record of the dependencies. You might even generate those into a separate file (perhaps 'depend.mk') which you then include in the makefile. Or you can find a 'make depend' rule which edits the makefile with the correct dependencies (Google terms: "do not remove this line" and depend).
Simpler solution: Just use the Makefile to have the .c to .o compilation rule be dependent on the header file(s) and whatever else is relevant in your project as a dependency.
E.g., in the Makefile somewhere:
DEPENDENCIES=mydefs.h yourdefs.h Makefile GameOfThrones.S07E01.mkv
::: (your other Makefile statements like rules
::: for constructing executables or libraries)
# Compile any .c to the corresponding .o file:
%.o: %.c $(DEPENDENCIES)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $# $<
None of the answers worked for me. E.g. Martin Fido's answer suggests gcc can create dependency file, but when I tried that it was generating empty (zero bytes) object files for me without any warnings or errors. It might be a gcc bug. I am on
$ gcc --version gcc (GCC) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-16)
So here's my complete Makefile that works for me; it's a combination of solutions + something that wasn't mentioned by anyone else (e.g. "suffix replacement rule" specified as .cc.o:):
CC = g++
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -std=c++0x
INCLUDES = -I./includes/
# LFLAGS = -L../lib
# LIBS = -lmylib -lm
# List of all source files
SRCS = main.cc cache.cc
# Object files defined from source files
OBJS = $(SRCS:.cc=.o)
# # define the executable file
MAIN = cache_test
#List of non-file based targets:
.PHONY: depend clean all
## .DEFAULT_GOAL := all
# List of dependencies defined from list of object files
DEPS := $(OBJS:.o=.d)
all: $(MAIN)
-include $(DEPS)
$(MAIN): $(OBJS)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -o $(MAIN) $(OBJS) $(LFLAGS) $(LIBS)
#suffix replacement rule for building .o's from .cc's
#build dependency files first, second line actually compiles into .o
.cc.o:
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) $<
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -o $# $<
clean:
$(RM) *.o *~ $(MAIN) *.d
Notice I used .cc .. The above Makefile is easy to adjust for .c files.
Also notice importance of these two lines :
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -MM -MF $(patsubst %.o,%.d,$#) $<
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c -o $# $<
so gcc is called once to build a dependency file first, and then actually compiles a .cc file. And so on for each source file.
I believe the mkdep command is what you want. It actually scans .c files for #include lines and creates a dependency tree for them. I believe Automake/Autoconf projects use this by default.

Using makefile arguments without foo=

I have a makefile I use to compile a single file. When I need to pass an argument, I use target=targetFile.
The script takes the argument, looks for the file (within the same directory) that has the same value as the argument and compiles it.
I use this for compiling problems from uhunt and uva, which use a single c++ file. So I dont' need multiple makefiles for multiple source files. Single makefile for multiple source files is the reason I made the makefile.
Here's the code I have so far
OBJS = $(target).o
CC = g++
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -std=c++11
INCLUDE = -I./$(target)
#default command to run
all : Main-$(target) clean run
#compile and build
Main-$(target) : $(OBJS)
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $^ -o $#
%.o : %.cpp
$(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) $<
#remove object and any other garbage files.
clean:
rm -rf -d $(target).o *~ *% *# .#*
#remove the compiled file
clean-all:
$(clean) rm Main-$(target)
#run the compiled file
run:
./Main-$(target)
The command I use to compile is,
make target=sourceFile
Also I don't include the file extension, I have all my source file extensions to be cpp
What I want in the end is:
make sourceFile
Just a side note, for using the command clean and clean-all, I use
make target=sourceFile clean
make target=sourceFile clean-all
I'd prefer if I can use:
make sourceFile clean
make sourceFile clean-all
You may use common Makefile variable MAKECMDGOALS that contains all targets passed to make.
Please try this variant
CC = g++
CFLAGS = -Wall -g
MAKECMDGOALS := $(filter-out clean, $(MAKECMDGOALS))
.PHONY: $(MAKECMDGOALS)
$(MAKECMDGOALS):
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $#.c -o Main-$#
clean:
rm -f *.o
Here the lines
$(MAKECMDGOALS):
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $#.c -o Main-$#
will generate separate build targets for each word in MAKECMDGOALS.
Note, we need this Makefile to know that 'clean' is a target for removing stuff, but not to attempt build Main-clean. This why we remove clean from MAKECMDGOALS using filter-out function.
So if we run make a b clean, the build system will generate automatically targets for building Main-a and Main-b and then use already written clean target
Disclaimer -- this is a non-standard use of Make, and will therefore open up all kinds of corner cases, so I don't recommend it. This is better suited for a shell script calling make. That being said... it is an interesting question.
You can't do make xxx clean, and not have it try to build xxx (unless you do some really nasty cludge using recursive make, but I won't go there). You could do something like make clean-xxx though, as follows:
%:Main-%
Main-%:%.cpp
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $< -o Main-$#
clean-%:
rm Main-$*
Notice that %-clean has a shorter stem, and therefor takes precedence over the % if the make target starts with clean-.

How to compile "not-main" (only .hpp) files with makefile in C++?

I'm developing a parallel project with a Main.cpp and a set of .hpp files. I've found the Makefile below suitable to compile, deploy and execute my project on a Xeon Phi. The problem here is that if I edit only one of the .hpp (so not Main.cpp) then when I execute make compile obviously nothing happens (so I have to execute make clean before). Can you help me to change it so if I edit file.hpp then it will compile it? Thanks!
FF_ROOT = /home/luca/fastflow
BOOST_ROOT = /home/luca/boost_1_59_0
CC = icpc -mmic
CXX = $(CC) -std=c++11 -DNO_DEFAULT_MAPPING
INCLUDES = -I $(BOOST_ROOT) -I $(FF_ROOT)
CXXFLAGS =
LDFLAGS = -pthread
OPTFLAGS = -O3 -finline-functions -DNDEBUG -g -O0
TARGETS = \
Main \
.PHONY: all clean copy exec cleanall
.SUFFIXES: .cpp
%: %.cpp
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) $(OPTFLAGS) -o $# $< $(LDFLAGS)
all: compile
compile: $(TARGETS)
copy:
scp $(TARGETS) mic0:
exec:
ssh mic0 './$(TARGETS) $(ARGS)'
clean:
rm -f $(TARGETS)
cleanall : clean
\rm -f *.o *~
Your Makefile is blatantly not sufficient. At the moment it only contains the commands to translate from one input to the next, but it's missing the crucial ingredient of any build system: Dependencies.
Dependencies are hard to maintain by hand. You could add main: a.hpp b.hpp etc by hand, but that doesn't scale and you forget to update it when you refactor. That's why make is not usually something the user should use directly. make is a bit like assembler: it's the final level at which build rules are expressed, but creating the build rules is best left to a higher-level system (e.g. automake or cmake or any of the other competitors in the field; or even the old makedepend).
As a side note, you really don't want to build the binary directly from source, that defeats almost all points of having a Makefile. You really want to break your project into separately compiled translation units, so that you only rebuild the minimal amount after a change.
OBJS := a.o b.o c.o
main: $(OBJS)
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS) $< -o $#
.cc.o:
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -c $< -o $#
# Dependencies! This is in addition to the implied "foo.o: foo.cc" above.
a.o: a.h b.h tools.h
b.o: b.h tools.h
c.o: c.h b.h weirdstuff.h
Many tutorials explain all this.
Add a rule for the source file where it depends on all (local, not system) header files.
Like
Main.cpp: SomeHeaderFile.hpp SomeOtherHeaderFile.hpp

Why does GNU make always re-link my project?

I have the following Makefile in a directory full of .cpp and .h files:
CFLAGS=-g -std=c++0x -Wall -pedantic -Wextra -D __STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -D __STDC_FORMAT_MACROS -O0
CXX=g++
LDFLAGS=-lgmp -lmathsat -lz3
all: Foo.o Bar.o
$(CXX) $(CFLAGS) -o myexe Foo.o Bar.o $(LDFLAGS)
depend: .depend
.depend: $(wildcard *.cpp)
rm -f ./.depend
$(CXX) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^ > ./.depend
include .depend
%.o: %.cpp
$(CXX) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDE) $< -c
clean:
rm -f *.o myexe
When I hit make, it invariably executes the last step (linking) even when none of the .o files have changed. How can I prevent make from doing that? I'd expect make to output Everything up-to-date or something similar.
I'm on a i686 GNU/Linux machine with GNU Make 3.82 and g++ version 4.8.2.
Make relinks your project because it tries to build all. The rule for all does not create any file named all. Instead it produces myexe. Next time you run make, it will see that there's no all, but there's a rule to build one, so it dutifully executes that rule which happens to link myexe every time you run make.
In order to fix your problem you need to change your makefile to look roughly like this:
all: myexe
echo Build done
myexe: <myexe dependencies go here>
$(CXX) $(CFLAGS) -o myexe $(wildcard *.o) $(LDFLAGS)
Make always tries to build the top rule. For you, this is all. Since your all rule doesn't actually make an all file it will always be run.
Your probably want your all rule to be a myexe rule and, if you want an explicit all rule, have a dependency only rule: all: myexe.
(With GNU Make, you might want to explicitly declare those targets which aren't supposed to generate a real file with a .PHONY rule. e.g. .PHONY: all depend clean.)
make is a rule-based expert system.
You give it a heap of rules and a target (default target is the first one listed), and then it builds a complete dependency tree.
All parts are rebuilt iff they are non-existent resp. older than their dependencies, recursively.
The rule you are stumbling over is this: Because the target all does not create an output file all, make invokes the non-existent-or-outdated rule.
You can correct this by making the target all not do any work but instead just depend on the output file. Marking it .PHONY is also a good idea.

make include directive and dependency generation with -MM

I want a build rule to be triggered by an include directive if the target of the include is out of date or doesn't exist.
Currently the makefile looks like this:
program_NAME := wget++
program_H_SRCS := $(wildcard *.h)
program_CXX_SRCS := $(wildcard *.cpp)
program_CXX_OBJS := ${program_CXX_SRCS:.cpp=.o}
program_OBJS := $(program_CXX_OBJS)
DEPS = make.deps
.PHONY: all clean distclean
all: $(program_NAME) $(DEPS)
$(program_NAME): $(program_OBJS)
$(LINK.cc) $(program_OBJS) -o $(program_NAME)
clean:
#- $(RM) $(program_NAME)
#- $(RM) $(program_OBJS)
#- $(RM) make.deps
distclean: clean
make.deps: $(program_CXX_SRCS) $(program_H_SRCS)
$(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) -MM $(program_CXX_SRCS) > make.deps
include $(DEPS)
The problem is that it seems like the include directive is executing before the rule to build make.deps which effectively means that make is either getting no dependency list if make.deps doesn't exist or always getting the make.deps from the previous build and not the current one.
For example:
$ make clean
$ make
makefile:32: make.deps: No such file or directory
g++ -MM addrCache.cpp connCache.cpp httpClient.cpp wget++.cpp > make.deps
g++ -c -o addrCache.o addrCache.cpp
g++ -c -o connCache.o connCache.cpp
g++ -c -o httpClient.o httpClient.cpp
g++ -c -o wget++.o wget++.cpp
g++ addrCache.o connCache.o httpClient.o wget++.o -o wget++
Edit
I read the docs for the include directive, and it sounds like if the include target doesn't exist it will continue processing the parent makefile try and build the target, but it's not completely clear to me how this works:
If an included makefile cannot be
found in any of these directories, a
warning message is generated, but it
is not an immediately fatal error;
processing of the makefile containing
the include continues. Once it has
finished reading makefiles, make will
try to remake any that are out of date
or don't exist. See section How
Makefiles Are Remade. Only after it
has tried to find a way to remake a
makefile and failed, will make
diagnose the missing makefile as a
fatal error.
ANSWER
This is a modification of the answer I accepted. The one thing missing was that the dependency files also depend on the sources, and won't get regenerated unless they are added to the deps files which are being included:
%.d: $(program_CXX_SRCS)
# $(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) -MM $*.cpp | sed -e 's#^\(.*\)\.o:#\1.d \1.o:#' > $#
sed adds the name of the .d file to the beginning of each dependency line like so:
foo.d foo.o: foo.cpp foo.h bar.h baz.h
I got the idea from this amazing paper on the dangers of recursive make:
Recursive Make Considered Harmful
I also add the following to the makefile:
clean_list += ${program_SRCS:.c=.d}
# At the end of the makefile
# Include the list of dependancies generated for each object file
# unless make was called with target clean
ifneq "$(MAKECMDGOALS)" "clean"
-include ${program_SRCS:.c=.d}
endif
You are relying on an implicit rule to compile your .cpp files. You have to redefine it to use the -MM and -MF flags that will create the dependency file.
%.o: %.cpp
$(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -c $< -o $# -MM -MF $#.d
Then, you have to include these dependencies files in the Makefile, using -include that will not error when the dependencies files do not exist yet (on the first time, or after a clean).
program_DEPS := $(program_OBJS:.o=.o.d)
-include $(program_DEPS)
And remember to add the rm command for the dependencies files in the clean rule.
An important point that it took me a while to grasp is that the make.deps from the previous build are good enough. Think about it: for a given object file, the only way the list of dependency files can change is if... one of the old dependency files has been altered. And if that's the case, then the old make.deps will cause that object file to be rebuilt, and if rebuilding the object file also rebuilds make.deps, then everything will be up to date. You don't have to rebuild make.deps before checking to see which objects must be rebuilt.
The include directives work like they do in C and C++ - they are processed before anything else happens, to build the "real" makefile that make then processes. Specifically, they are processed before any rules are fired.