Question

I’ve looking to find a simple recommended ‘minimal’ c++ makefile for linux which will use g++ to compile and link a single file and h file. Ideally the make file will not even have the physical file names in it and only have a .cpp to .o transform. What is the best way to generate such a makefile without diving into the horrors of autoconf?

The current dir contains, for example

t.cpp t.h

and I want a makefile for that to be created. I tried autoconf but its assuming .h is gcc instead of g++. Yes, while not a beginner, I am relearning from years ago best approaches to project manipulation and hence am looking for automated ways to create and maintain makefiles for small projects.

Answer 1

If it is a single file, you can type

make t 

And it will invoke

g++ t.cpp -o t 

This doesn’t even require a Makefile in the directory, although it will get confused if you have a t.cpp and a t.c and a t.java, etc etc.

Also a real Makefile:

SOURCES := t.cpp # Objs are all the sources, with .cpp replaced by .o OBJS := $(SOURCES:.cpp=.o)  all: t  # Compile the binary 't' by calling the compiler with cflags, lflags, and any libs (if defined) and the list of objects. t: $(OBJS)     $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o t $(OBJS) $(LFLAGS) $(LIBS)  # Get a .o from a .cpp by calling compiler with cflags and includes (if defined) .cpp.o:     $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -c $<