Question

I have several hundred files in a non-flat directory structure. My Makefile lists each sourcefile, which, given the size of the project and the fact that there are multiple developers on the project, can create annoyances when we forget to put a new one in or take out the old ones. I’d like to generalize my Makefile so that make can simply build all .cpp and .h files without me having to specify all the filenames, given some generic rules for different types of files.

My question: given a large number of files in a directory with lots of subfolders, how do I tell make to build them all without having to specify each and every subfolder as part of the path? And how do I make it so that I can do this with only one Makefile in the root directory?

EDIT: this almost answers my question, but it requires that you specify all filenames :\

Answer 1

I’m sure a pure-gmake solution is possible, but using an external command to modify the makefile, or generate an external one (which you include in your makefile) is probably much simpler.

Something along the lines of:

all: myprog

find_sources:
    zsh -c 'for x in **/*.cpp; echo "myprog: ${x/.cpp/.o}" >> deps.mk'

include deps.mk

and run

make find_sources && make

note: the exact zsh line probably needs some escaping to work in a make file, e.g. $$ instead of $. It can also be replaced with bash + find.