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From How to create a self-documenting Makefile | victoria.dev

SHELL := /bin/bash
MY_VARIABLE := /path/to/new-dir


.PHONY: help
help: ## Show this help
    @egrep -h '\s##\s' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | sort | awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*?## "}; {printf "\033[36m%-20s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'


save-dconf: ## Save dconf settings to .config/dconf/settings.dconf
    dconf dump /org/gnome/ > .config/dconf/settings.dconf


save-vsce: ## Save a list of VSC extensions to .config/Code/extensions.txt
    ls ~/.vscode/extensions/ > .config/Code/extensions.txt


save: save-dconf save-vsce ## Update dconf and vsc extensions files


update: ## Do apt upgrade and autoremove
    sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
    sudo apt autoremove -y


## Make all changes in one shell session
.ONESHELL:
pandoc-markdown-to-org: ## markdown to org
    cd lc/scripts/pandoc
    find . -name \*.md -type f -exec pandoc -f markdown -t org -o {}.org {} --lua-filter=remove-header-attr.lua --wrap=none \;
    sed -i 's/\xc2\xa0/ /g' *.org


## If you have subdirectories with their own Makefiles, you can use recursive make invocations.
##  Create a top-level Makefile that calls make in each subdirectory:
all:
    $(MAKE) -C subdir1
    $(MAKE) -C subdir2
    $(MAKE) -C subdir3


.PHONY: help
print_my_variable: ## Print my variable
    echo "$$MY_VARIABLE"
Terminal window
# Run make in a different working directory
make -C /path/to/working/directory

Check Makefile syntax

Section titled “Check Makefile syntax”

Per: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16931770/makefile4-missing-separator-stop

Make defines a tab is required to start each recipe. All actions of every rule are identified by tabs. If you prefer to prefix your recipes with a character other than tab, you can set the .RECIPEPREFIX variable to an alternate character.

Terminal window
# To check, the command:
# -e shows non-printing characters
# -t shows tabs
# -v shows lines
cat -e -t -v makefile_name
cat -e -t -v Makefile
  • It shows the presence of tabs with I and line endings with $.
  • Both are vital to ensure that dependencies end properly and tabs mark the action for the rules so that they are easily identifiable to the make utility.

Example:

Terminal window
cat -e -t -v  mk.t
all:ll$      ## here the $ is end of line ...
$
ll:ll.c   $
^Igcc  -c  -Wall -Werror -02 c.c ll.c  -o  ll  $@  $<$
## the ^I above means a tab was there before the action part, so this line is ok .
 $
clean :$
   \rm -fr ll$
## see here there is no ^I which means , tab is not present ....
## in this case you need to open the file again and edit/ensure a tab
## starts the action part

See Also

Section titled “See Also”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”