Question

i have this simple rule:

.PHONY: test
test: src/*Test.php
    $(PHPUNIT) $?;\

it will look trhu the unit tests i have and run phpunit.

I wanted to have something like: (warning, non-valid makefile syntax)

ifneq($(HAS_PHPUNIT),)
test: testok
else
test: testbad
endif

testok: src/*Test.php
    $(PHPUNIT) $?;\

testbad:
    echo "test: failed checking for executable file $(PHPUNIT)";\
    echo "      You may need to install phpunit";\

i could use the current code and just add if [ ! -e $(PHPUNIT) ]; then warn; else test it; done but then if will be overly verbose as it will warn the user once per file.

what’s the pattern i’m missing here?

Answer 1

The “make way” to do it is to make your one-time check a separate target itself, and list that as a prerequisite of the targets that you would like to only run after that check happens. Here’s one way you can do it with GNU make:

TESTS:=$(wildcard *.test)
TEST_TARGETS=$(patsubst %,run_%,$(TESTS))
.PHONY: test

test: $(TEST_TARGETS)

run_%: check_php_unit
        @echo Running test $(*)

check_php_unit:
        @echo Checking for php unit

That is, make a dummy target for each test file that executes that set of tests, then make those targets depend on the check_php_unit target. The commands for check_php_unit can do whatever validation you want and then print a warning, or exit with an error code and cause the make run to terminate, or whatever you like.