Learn Makefiles With the tastiest examples

原文链接：https://makefiletutorial.com/#arguments-to-make

I built this guide because I could never quite wrap my head around Makefiles. They seemed awash with hidden rules and esoteric symbols, and asking simple questions didn’t yield simple answers. To solve this, I sat down for several weekends and read everything I could about Makefiles. I’ve condensed the most critical knowledge into this guide. Each topic has a brief description and a self contained example that you can run yourself.

If you mostly understand Make, consider checking out the Makefile Cookbook, which has a template for medium sized projects with ample comments about what each part of the Makefile is doing.

Good luck, and I hope you are able to slay the confusing world of Makefiles!

Getting Started

Why do Makefiles exist?

Makefiles are used to help decide which parts of a large program need to be recompiled. In the vast majority of cases, C or C++ files are compiled. Other languages typically have their own tools that serve a similar purpose as Make. It can be used beyond programs too, when you need a series of instructions to run depending on what files have changed. This tutorial will focus on the C/C++ compilation use case.

Here’s an example dependency graph that you might build with Make. If any file’s dependencies changes, then the file will get recompiled: