Follow Techotopia on Twitter

On-line Guides
All Guides
eBook Store
iOS / Android
Linux for Beginners
Office Productivity
Linux Installation
Linux Security
Linux Utilities
Linux Virtualization
Linux Kernel
System/Network Admin
Programming
Scripting Languages
Development Tools
Web Development
GUI Toolkits/Desktop
Databases
Mail Systems
openSolaris
Eclipse Documentation
Techotopia.com
Virtuatopia.com
Answertopia.com

How To Guides
Virtualization
General System Admin
Linux Security
Linux Filesystems
Web Servers
Graphics & Desktop
PC Hardware
Windows
Problem Solutions
Privacy Policy

  




 

 

[ < ] [ > ]   [ << ] [ Up ] [ >> ]         [Top] [Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

4.5.4 Writing Shell Commands with Directory Search

When a prerequisite is found in another directory through directory search, this cannot change the commands of the rule; they will execute as written. Therefore, you must write the commands with care so that they will look for the prerequisite in the directory where make finds it.

This is done with the automatic variables such as `$^' (see section Automatic Variables). For instance, the value of `$^' is a list of all the prerequisites of the rule, including the names of the directories in which they were found, and the value of `$@' is the target. Thus:

 
foo.o : foo.c
        cc -c $(CFLAGS) $^ -o $@

(The variable CFLAGS exists so you can specify flags for C compilation by implicit rules; we use it here for consistency so it will affect all C compilations uniformly; see section Variables Used by Implicit Rules.)

Often the prerequisites include header files as well, which you do not want to mention in the commands. The automatic variable `$<' is just the first prerequisite:

 
VPATH = src:../headers
foo.o : foo.c defs.h hack.h
        cc -c $(CFLAGS) $< -o $@



 
 
  Published under the terms of the GNU General Public License Design by Interspire