Question

I wonder why this won’t delete/clean *.o files generated when running make?

# UNIX Makefile

CXX = g++
LD  = g++
CXXFLAGS = -g

testlfunction: lfunction.o lfunctionlist.o lprocessor.o testlfunction.o
    $(LD) -o $@ $^

clean:
    rm *.o testlfunction

before it use to be

$(RM) *.o testlfunction

but it didn’t work also ;(

Why is this?

Answer 1

To check what really happens, run “make clean” and examine the output of that command.

1. Is it nothing? Then there might be a file called “clean” in the current directory. Remove it and try again.
2. Does it start with “rm …”? Then it seems to be normal.
3. In all other cases, tell us the exact output you get.

To check whether the commands are really run, insert some “echo” commands before and after the “rm” command. Are they executed?

And finally, did you distinguish between tab characters and spaces? In Makefiles the difference is important. Commands must be indented using tabs.