Question

In my makefile I would like to print a process message (something like “Build $(PROJ_NAME) project…”) before building the dependencies of a target. For example my target look like this one below:

$(PROJ_NAME): $(OBJS)
    echo "Build $(PROJ_NAME) project..."
    $(LD) $(LDFLAGS) --gc-sections "-T$(MISC_DIR)/$(PROJ_NAME).ld" ...

Executing this target my build message is printed after building the dependencies in $(OBJS). Is there any possibility to print a message before doing anything creating the target?

Answer 1

You could add another dependency before the object files, that is always made. Something like this:

$(PROJ_NAME): pre_build $(OBJS)
    $(LD) $(LDFLAGS) --gc-sections "-T$(MISC_DIR)/$(PROJ_NAME).ld" ...

.PHONY: pre_build
pre_build:
    @echo "Build $(PROJ_NAME) project..."

This pre_build target will (in most normal cases) always be executed before the targets in $(OBJS).