GNU Make, A Program for Directing Recompilation

 [Front cover of GNU Make Manual]  [Back cover of GNU Make Manual]

Richard M. Stallman and Roland McGrath. Make verion 3.79. ISBN: 1-882114-81-7. 174 pages.

GNU Make (For Version 3.79) describes GNU make, a program used to rebuild parts of other programs.

The manual tells how to write "makefiles", which specify how a program is to be compiled and how its files depend on each other.

It has an introductury chapther with a sample makefile, and describes in detail how to write the makefiles for your own programs and how to run Make to update them.

GNU Make provides a complete explanation of make, both the standard features familiar to most programmers and the many extended features of GNU make. A convenient appendix serves as a quick reference for experts.

About GNU Make

The Make utility automates the process of compilation. When the source files of a large program change, Make automatically determines which pieces need to be updated and recompiles only those files. All you do is type "make".

GNU Make is fully compliant with the POSIX.2 standard, and also has many powerful extensions: flexible implicit pattern rules, an extensive set of text manipulation functions, conditional evaluation of makefiles, support for parallel command execution, automatic updating of makefiles, and more.

There is more information on GNU Make here.

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For several reasons:

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Updated: 20 Jun 2000 3diff