Re:A Tutorial on Portable Makefiles
by CJefferson on Sunday August 20, 2017 @05:35PM
(#15060367)
Nowadays I write a GNUmakefile, then add a Makefile with a message telling people to use gmake. Same idea.
Re:A Tutorial on Portable Makefiles
by contras1970 on Monday August 21, 2017 @03:37PM
(#15067150)
i have this in a (hand-written) configure script:
case "$(uname -s)" in
Darvin|Linux)
MAKE=make
GMAKE=$MAKE
;;
DragonFly|*BSD)
MAKE=make
GMAKE=gmake
;;
*)
MAKE=gmake
GMAKE=$MAKE
;;
esac
...
if test "$MAKE" != "$GMAKE"; then
case "$(uname -s)" in
DragonFly|*BSD)
populate $rootdir/Makefile.in Makefile
;;
esac
fi
cat <<EOF
to build the programs from their sources:
$MAKE
to test their correctness:
$MAKE check
EOF
all .DEFAULT:
@@GMAKE@ --no-print-directory "$@"
I seem to be about the only person that makes use of the following feature, but FreeBSD and GNU make will in addition to looking for a file named Makefile, also look for BSDmakefile or GNUmakefile respectively.
So when I write a makefile with GNU make specific contents, I name it GNUmakefile, and when I write one that is specific to FreeBSD make, I name it BSDmakefile.
The user has to do absolutely nothing different; they simply write
and if their make is GNU make and my makefile is a GNUmakefile then it builds. Likewise with FreeBSD make and a file named BSDmakefile.The big win is when someone then has the wrong make. Instead of beginning to build and then failing at some point kicking and screaming, they will simply be told
by FreeBSD make, or by GNU make.And at that point they will consult the README I have written for the project in question and they will learn that they need the other make than what they are using if they want to build this software.