Question

If I want to make a commandline tool using makefile for, say this C program:

# include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    printf("Hello World!");
    return 0;
}

I have no previous experience with makefile or linux shell commands whatsoever. Just starting out. Can anyone tell me how to go about it?

Answer 1

You don’t really need a makefile for a single source file like this – just compile it like this:

$ gcc -Wall foo.c -o foo

If you really want a makefile though then you can do something like this:

#
# makefile
#

foo: foo.c
    gcc -Wall foo.c -o foo

then from the command line you could say:

$ make foo

or even just

$ make