Question

Specifically I’m thinking of a “clean” rule to remove leftover files.

files=file1 file2
clean:
    rm -f $(files)
file1: file1dependancy.o

How can I make clean automatically rm -f file1dependancy.o or is that even possible?

Answer 1

Normally, the structure of the makefile would look something like:

RM_F  = rm -f
FILES = file1 file2

all:   ${FILES}

FILE1.o = file1dependency.o

file1: ${FILE1.o}
    ...build command mentioning ${FILE1.o}...

FILE2.o = file2.dependency.o

file2: ${FILE2.o}
    ...build command mentioning ${FILE2.o}...

clean:
    ${RM_F} ${FILE1.o} ${FILE2.o} ${FILES|

Depending on your version of make, there might be a macro for ‘all the dependencies’; it isn’t in POSIX make, though.