GNU Make Tutorial

A GNU Make Tutorial

Byron Weber Becker
19-Jan-1996

Purpose

Make is a utility which uses a script, called a makefile to automatically determine which of a sequence of steps must be repeated because some files have changed. Two of the most common uses are

Recompiling programs residing in several files, and
Testing programs.

Since we are using Modula-3, which has its own make-like facility, this document will focus on using make for testing.

There are many versions of make in use. This tutorial assumes GNU Make, distributed freely by the Free Software Foundation. It has a number of features which make it more attractive than the standard Unix make.

Index

Rules
An example
Usage Notes

The complete reference for GNU Make is by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.