wjj@sun-valley.ai.mit.edu (Warren Jasper) (08/04/89)
I noticed that GNU make does not have a man page with the distribution. I think it is important to have one so that when searching keywords (man -k) something will show up for gmake. I have included a man page that we use on our system. One other suggestion. Why not install GNU make as /usr/local/bin/gmake. That way, users can use both UNIX make and GNU make on their systems. If one blindly types "make install", the vender supplied make program may not be accessible by users on the system. -- Warren ________________________________________________________________________ .TH GNUMAKE 1L "05 May 1989" "GNU" "LOCAL USER COMMANDS" .SH NAME gnumake \- GNU make utility to maintain program groups .SH SYNOPSIS .B "gnumake " [ .B \-f makefile ] [ option ] ... file ... .br .B "gmake " [ .B \-f makefile ] [ option ] ... file ... .SH DESCRIPTION .IX "gnumake command" "" "\fLgnumake\fP \- GNU make utility to maintain program groups" .IX keyword gnumake .IX "GNU make utility to maintain program groups" "" "GNU make utility to maintain program groups \- \fLgnumake\fP" .LP The purpose of the .I gnumake utility is to determine automatically which pieces of a large program need to be recompiled, and issue the commands to recompile them. This manual describes the GNU implementation of .IR make , which was implemented by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath. The command can be executed as either .I gnumake or .IR gmake . .LP Our examples show C programs, since they are most common, but you can use .I gnumake with any programming language whose compiler can be run with a shell command. In fact, .I gnumake is not limited to programs. You can use it to describe any task where some files must be updated automatically from others whenever the others change. .LP To prepare to use .IR gnumake , you must write a file called the .I makefile that describes the relationships among files in your program, and the states the commands for updating each file. In a program, typically the executable file is updated from object files, which are in turn made by compiling source files. .LP Once a suitable makefile exists, each time you change some source files, this simple shell command: .sp 1 .RS .B gnumake .RE .sp 1 suffices to perform all necessary recompilations. The .I gnumake program uses the makefile data base and the last-modification times of the files to decide which of the files need to be updated. For each of those files, it issues the commands recorded in the data base. .LP .I gnumake executes commands in .I makefile to update one or more target .IR names , where .I name is typically a program. If no .B \-f option is present, .I gnumake will look for the makefile names .IR GNUmakefile , .IR makefile , and .IR Makefile , in that order. .LP Normally you should call your makefile either .I makefile or .IR Makefile . (We recommend .I Makefile because it appears prominently near the beginning of a directory listing, right near other important files such as .IR README .) The first name checked, .IR GNUmakefile , is not recommended for most makefiles. You should use this name if you have a makefile that is specific to GNU .IR gnumake , and will not be understood by other versions of .IR make . If .I makefile is `\-', the standard input is taken. .LP .I gnumake updates a target if it depends on prerequisite files that have been modified since the target was last modified, or if the target does not exist. .LP The complete manual for .I gnumake is online in .IR /usr/local/doc/gnumake.dvi . This manual gives a good description of the general principles behind .I make and how to write makefiles. This is a very good place for novice make users to start. .SH OPTIONS .sp 1 .TP 0.5i .B \-b .TP 0.5i .B \-m These options are ignored for compatibility with other versions of .IR make . .TP 0.5i .BI "\-C " dir Change to directory .I dir before reading the makefiles. If multiple .B \-C options are specified, each is interpreted relative to the previous one: .BR "\-C " / .BR "\-C " etc is equivalent to .BR "\-C " /etc. This is typically used with recursive invocations of .IR gnumake . .TP 0.5i .B \-d Print debugging information in addition to normal processing. The debugging information says which files are being considered for remaking, which file-times are being compared and with what results, which files actually need to be remade, which implicit rules are considered and which are applied---everything interesting about how .I gnumake decides what to do. .TP 0.5i .BI "\-f " file Use file .I file as a makefile. .TP 0.5i .B \-i Ignore all errors in commands executed to remake files. .TP 0.5i .BI "\-I " dir Specifies a directory .I dir to search for included makefiles. If several .B \-I options are used to specify several directories, the directories are searched in the order specified. Unlike the arguments to other flags of .IR gnumake , directories given with . \-I flags may come directly after the flag: .BI \-I dir is allowed, as well as .BI "\-I " dir. This syntax is allowed for compatibility with the C preprocessor's .B \-I flag. .TP 0.5i .BI "\-j " jobs Specifies the number of jobs (commands) to run simultaneously. If there is more than one .B \-j option, the last one is effective. .TP 0.5i .B \-k Continue as much as possible after an error. While the target that failed, and those that depend on it, cannot be remade, the other dependencies of these targets can be processed all the same. .TP 0.5i .B \-l .TP 0.5i .BI "\-l " load Specifies that no new jobs (commands) should be started if there are others jobs running and the load average is at least .I load (a floating-point number). With no argument, removes a previous load limit. .TP 0.5i .B \-n Print the commands that would be executed, but do not execute them. .TP 0.5i .BI "\-o " file Do not remake the file .I file even if it is older than its dependencies, and do not remake anything on account of changes in .IR file . Essentially the file is treated as very old and its rules are ignored. .TP 0.5i .B \-p Print the data base (rules and variable values) that results from reading the makefiles; then execute as usual or as otherwise specified. This also prints the version information given by the .B \-v switch (see below). To print the data base without trying to remake any files, use .B gnumake .B \-p .BI \-f /dev/null. .TP 0.5i .B \-q ``Question mode''. Do not run any commands, or print anything; just return an exit status that is zero if the specified targets are already up to date, nonzero otherwise. .TP 0.5i .B \-r Eliminate use of the built-in implicit rules. Also clear out the default list of suffixes for suffix rules. .TP 0.5i .B \-s Silent operation; do not print the commands as they are executed. .TP 0.5i .B \-S Cancel the effect of the .B \-k option. This is never necessary except in a recursive .I gnumake where .B \-k might be inherited from the top-level .I gnumake via MAKEFLAGS or if you set .B \-k in MAKEFLAGS in your environment. .TP 0.5i .B \-t Touch files (mark them up to date without really changing them) instead of running their commands. This is used to pretend that the commands were done, in order to fool future invocations of .IR gnumake . .TP 0.5i .B \-v Print the version of the .I gnumake program plus a copyright, a list of authors and a notice that there is no warranty. After this information is printed, processing continues normally. To get this information without doing anything else, use .B gnumake .B \-v .BI \-f /dev/null. .TP 0.5i .B \-w Print a message containing the working directory both before and after executing the makefile. This may be useful for tracking down errors from complicated nests of recursive .I gnumake commands. .TP 0.5i .BI "\-W " file Pretend that the target .I file has just been modified. When used with the .B \-n flag, this shows you what would happen if you were to modify that file. Without .BR \-n , it is almost the same as running a .I touch command on the given file before running .IR gnumake , except that the modification time is changed only in the imagination of .IR gnumake . .SH EXAMPLES Refer to the ``\fIGNU Make Utility User's Manual\fP'' for a number of useful examples. .SH "SEE ALSO" .PD 0 .TP 2.0i /usr/local/doc/gnumake.dvi .I The GNU Make Utility User's Manual .PD .SH BUGS See Section 2, page 9 of the user's manual for reporting bugs. .SH AUTHOR This manual page written by Dennis Morse, Stanford University