So i know that the pattern rule %.o : %.cpp is for making any file.o from a file.cpp
But what I want is different. Let's say I want to make a file1.o from folder1/file1.cpp, and a file2.o from folder2/file2.cpp.
What i thought about doing was :
file1=folder1/file1
file2=folder2/file2
%.o: $(%).cpp
But that doesn't work. Do anyone have an idea on how to do that apart from manually doing :
file1=folder1/file1
file2=folder2/file2
file1.o: $(file1).cpp
file2.o: $(file2).cpp
The meaning of % in GNU Make is documented in the seciton on Defining and Redefining Pattern Rules.
If the target name is foo.o, then % is foo. I don't want to go into any more depth on the meaning of % here.
In your case, the dependencies between the object files and the source files cannot be expressed easily using a single simple rule. I would advise making the rules explicit instead of using a pattern-based rule.
file1.o : folder1/file1.cpp
file2.o : folder2/file2.cpp
You'll need to add the commands to build those targets too.
file1.o : folder1/file1.cpp
$(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -c -o $# $^
file2.o : folder2/file2.cpp
$(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -c -o $# $^
I am trying to write a makefile that can create one executable per main function.
I have a list of files: main1.cpp, main2.cpp, and main3.cpp. They each contain an int main() function. Obviously I can't build these into one exec, which is not the goal here, so how can I build each one of these into its own executable? This is one solution:
main1: main1.cpp
$(CC) -o $# $^
main2: main2.cpp
$(CC) -o $# $^
main3: main3.cpp
$(CC) -o $# $^
But there MUST be a better way to do this. Is there some type of looping feature to makefiles that will make this process easier? Like a for loop?
A mixture of wildcard, patsubst and static pattern rules, plus the standard make variables for C++ compilation and linking:
SRCS := $(wildcard main*.cpp)
EXES := $(patsubst %.cpp,%,$(SRCS))
$(EXES): %: %.cpp
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS) -o $# $< $(LDLIBS)
But as make knows already how to make all this you could as well get rid of your Makefile and just type make main1...
While it's not a very sophisticated makefile, your solution is fine for three simple programs. You could make it more generic and support building all three targets at the same time with an "all" target.
all: main1 main2 main3
main1: main1.cpp
$(CC) -o $# $^
main2: main2.cpp
$(CC) -o $# $^
main3: main3.cpp
$(CC) -o $# $^
I've been doing a lot of reading on how to write makefiles to build an application on Linux but I'm massively confused about the many different ways to apparently achieve the same goal.
This is what I have come up with so far to build an archive.
SHELL = /bin/sh
CXX = g++
DEBUG = -g
CXXFLAGS = -std=c++11 -Wall -pedantic #-Wextra
CPPFLAGS = -I. \
-I./include
SOURCES = foo1.cpp \
foo2.cpp \
foo3.cpp
OBJECTS = $(SOURCES:.cpp=.o)
The following rule successfully compiles each source file into an object file and then creates an archive:
libfoo.a: $(OBJECTS)
ar rvcs $# $(OBJECTS)
%.o: src/%.cpp ./include/%.h
$(CXX) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $# $<
This also does the same thing:
libfoo.a: $(OBJECTS)
ar rvcs $# $(OBJECTS)
$(OBJECTS) : %.o:src/%.cpp
$(CXX) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $# $<
However, this fails with an error that there is no rule to make target 'foo1.o:%.h
libfoo.a: $(OBJECTS)
ar rvcs $# $(OBJECTS)
$(OBJECTS) : %.o:src/%.cpp %.o:%.h
$(CXX) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $# $<
Can someone please explain why it doesn't work and which approach is best?
The first option lists the header files as dependencies but the second option doesn't. That is my motivation for the third option.
How do I list the headers as dependencies using options 2 or 3?
TIA
The feature you're using in try #2 and try #3 is static pattern rules and the syntax looks like this:
<targets...> : <target-pattern> : <prerequisites...>
There can only be two colons, not three. You should write your try #3 above as:
$(OBJECTS) : %.o : src/%.cpp %.h
$(CXX) -c $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $# $<
Note one critical thing: this rule will FAIL if you ever create any .cpp file which does not have an associated .h file. Just sayin'.
Should be a simple makefile question, but didn't find a solution after some quick surfing.
Basically I have a bunch of "cpp" codes, each of which has a corresponding header file with the same stem name. I want to specify the dependency of each source file on its corresponding header file by using wild cards. The last commented-out line is what I want to add, and apparently its not working as intended.
SOURCES=a.cpp b.cpp c.cpp
HEADERS=$(SOURCES:.cpp=.h)
OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:.cpp=.o)
$(OBJECTS): %.o: %.cpp
$(CC) -fPIC -c $< -o $#
#$(OBJECTS): $(HEADERS)
You can add this:
$(OBJECTS): %.o: %.h
or modify your rule:
$(OBJECTS): %.o: %.cpp %.h
$(CC) -fPIC -c $< -o $#
I was looking for a solution on this site and also tried google for some time now, but somehow I can't get it to work.
My source should be in the src directory and the object files would be in the obj directory. Now I try to create a simple makefie but I either get an error that there is no rule, or I can't make it work to use the directories.
CC = /usr/bin/gcc
CXXFLAGS = -O2 -g -Wall -fmessage-length=0
SRC:= nohupshd.cpp \
task.cpp
OBJ:= nohupshd.o \
task.o
OBJDIR:= obj
SRCDIR:= src
DEP:= src/task.h
LIBS:=
TARGET:= nohupshd
all: $(TARGET)
$(TARGET): $(OBJ)
$(CC) -o $(TARGET) $(OBJ) $(LIBS)
clean:
rm -f $(OBJ) $(TARGET)
Variant 1:
$(OBJDIR)/%.o: $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp
$(CC) -S $(SRCDIR)/$< -o $(OBJDIR)/$#
$(CC) -c $(SRCDIR)/$< -o $(OBJDIR)/$#
Variant 1a:
%.o: %.cpp
$(CC) -S $(SRCDIR)/$< -o $(OBJDIR)/$#
$(CC) -c $(SRCDIR)/$< -o $(OBJDIR)/$#
When I use this pattern I always get an error that there is no rule for nohupshd.o to build.
Variant 2:
$(OBJ) : $(OBJDIR)/%.o: $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp
$(CC) -S $(SRCDIR)/$< -o $(OBJDIR)/$#
$(CC) -c $(SRCDIR)/$< -o $(OBJDIR)/$#
When I use this variant, I can see that it tries to build, but I get errors saying that "file".o doesn't fit the target pattern.
Another issue is that "$<" doesn't give me the source name. According to several sites it should, but I can see in the output that there is nothing, so how can I fix this?
Update:
In the meantime my newest version looks like this:
$(OBJDIR)/$(OBJ) : $(OBJDIR)/%.o : $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp
$(CC) -S $< -o $(OBJDIR)/`basename $# .o`.asm
$(CC) -c $< -o $#
This now manages to compile the first objectfile (nohupshd.o) but when make tries to do the second file it fails again saying: target 'task.o' doesn't match a pattern.
You actually have a couple if incorrect things above.
First you write My error was, that I was assuming that the pattern %.o matches ANY pattern ending with .o which it doesn't; that's not true. The pattern does match any string ending in .o. However, the pattern character % that is matched on the target side is replaced on the prerequisite side with the identical string. So if you have a target obj/task.o and it matches the pattern %.o then the stem (what the manual calls it) will be obj/task, and when the prerequisite is %.c that means that make will look for a prerequisite obj/task.c. Since there isn't one, and make doesn't know how to build one, that rule is discarded as not applying. When writing pattern rules you must write them so ONLY the identical parts of the names match the pattern character (%). ALL non-identical parts, including directories, must be specified explicitly.
Second, the rule $(OBJ) : $(SRC) is really not right. That line says that each object file depends on all the source files, so whenever any single source file changes all the object files will be recompiled. That's really not what you want (if that IS what you want you don't need make: you can just write a simple shell script). I don't know what you mean by since the rules is empty it invokes the pattern rule; you don't need this to invoke the pattern rule. The target depends on $(OBJ), and each object file depends on its source file (due to the pattern). You don't need this line at all.
Third, I don't know why you are trying to construct .asm files rather than just compiling directly from source to object, but if you really want them it would be cleaner and more "make-like" to create a separate pattern rule to build them: create a pattern rule $(OBJDIR)/%.o : $(OBJDIR)/%.asm and a rule $(OBJDIR)/%.asm : $(SRCDIR)/%.c. If you want the ASM files to be products of the build you should declare them as a prerequisite of all or similar, otherwise they'll be deleted as intermediate files.
Fourth, using things like basename is unnecessary. There are lots of automatic make variables that can be used instead. For example, $* expands to the stem, so you could write $(OBJDIR)/$*.asm. Of course if you make a separate pattern rule for ASM files you can just use $# or $< directly. There are various make functions that can also be used; see the manual.
Fifth, you define a variable containing a header file, DEP, but then never use it. Because it's not used, if you change that file nothing would be rebuilt. If you know that all the source files include every header you can use $(OBJ) : $(DEP) to define that; but it does mean (as in the second point above) that any change to any header causes all objects to recompile. You would be better off auto-generating the prerequisites; since you're using GCC this is quite simple.
Sixth, you're using C++ files (xxx.cpp) but you're using the C compiler. This will not work (the link line will fail: although the compiler can see you're compiling a C++ file and do the right thing, even if you call gcc, when you link a bunch of objects together it has no idea if those were C objects or C++ objects (or FORTRAN or whatever) so you MUST use the C++ front-end to link or it won't pull in the right C++ libraries). You should be using the make variable CXX to build C++ code, not CC, and setting it to g++ not gcc.
Seventh, you don't need .SUFFIXES: .c .o to use pattern rules. They are only needed for suffix rules, which you don't have here. You can keep the plain .SUFFIXES: though to disable built-in pattern matching which is a slight performance improvement.
Finally, you'll note you don't actually need the $(SRC) variable because make can infer it from the pattern rules. However, if you wanted to have your makefile less onerous to change, you could construct the contents of the OBJ variable from the SRC variable, like SRC = nohupshd.cpp task.cpp then OBJ = $(patsubst %.c,$(OBJDIR)/%.o,$(SRC)).
So, all-in, this is how I would recommend you write your makefile (I don't include the auto-generated dependencies here though):
.SUFFIXES:
CXX := g++
CXXFLAGS := -O2 -g -Wall -fmessage-length=0
OBJDIR := obj
SRCDIR := src
TARGET := nohupshd
SRC := nohupshd.cpp task.cpp
DEP := src/task.h
LIBS :=
# ----
OBJ := $(patsubst %.cpp,$(OBJDIR)/%.o,$(SRC))
ASM := $(patsubst %.cpp,$(OBJDIR)/%.asm,$(SRC))
.PHONY: all clean
all: $(TARGET) $(ASM)
$(TARGET): $(OBJ)
$(CXX) -o $# $^ $(LIBS)
clean:
rm -f $(OBJDIR)/* $(TARGET)
$(OBJDIR)/%.o : $(SRCDIR)/%.asm
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -c -x assembler-with-cpp $< -o $#
$(OBJDIR)/%.asm : $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp
$(CXX) $(CPPFLAGS) -S $< -o $#
Don't repeat the directory names in the compiler line. $< and $# already have the directory names.
$(OBJDIR)/%.o: $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp
$(CC) -S $< -o $#
$(CC) -c $< -o $#
So finally I found the answer on how to write this makefile, for an exaplanation of my mistakes look at the posting I marked as correct answer:
The resulting makefile looks like this, and for completeness I post it here including dependencies for header files (remove the ASM parts if you don't need 'em):
.SUFFIXES:
.SUFFIXES: .o .cpp
.SUFFIXES: .o .d
CC := g++
LNK:= ar
CXXFLAGS = -O2 -g -Wall -fmessage-length=0
OBJDIR:= obj
SRCDIR:= src
HDIR:= include
INCLUDE_PATHS:= -Iinclude -Iinclude/interfaces -Iinclude/support
CPP_FILES := propertyfile/propertyfile.cpp \
propertyfile/propertyitem.cpp \
propertyfile/propertyfactory.cpp
OBJ := $(patsubst %.cpp,$(OBJDIR)/%.o, $(CPP_FILES))
SRC := $(patsubst %.cpp,$(SRCDIR)/%.o, $(CPP_FILES))
ASM := $(patsubst %.cpp, $(OBJDIR)/$*.asm, $(CPP_FILES))
LIBS:=
TARGET:= libsupport.a
all: $(TARGET)
$(TARGET): $(OBJ)
#echo "Linking..."
#$(LNK) rvs $(TARGET) $(OBJ)
#cp $(TARGET) ../lib
#cp -r include ..
clean:
rm -f $(OBJ) $(ASM) $(TARGET)
-include $(patsubst %.cpp,$(OBJDIR)/%.d, $(CPP_FILES))
$(OBJDIR)/%.o: $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp $(OBJDIR)/%.d
#mkdir -p `dirname $#`
$(CC) $(CXXFLAGS) -S $< -o $(OBJDIR)/$*.asm $(INCLUDE_PATHS)
$(CC) $(CXXFLAGS) -c $< -o $# $(INCLUDE_PATHS)
$(OBJDIR)/%.d: $(SRCDIR)/%.cpp
$(CC) $(CXXFLAGS) -MM -MT $# -MF $(OBJDIR)/$*.d -c $< $(INCLUDE_PATHS)
I hope this helps other user. All examples that I found were either extremly simple and listed multiple files individually and not part of a rule, but didn't really explain how it works, or were so complicated that I couldn't find out how it can help me.